While some consider today’s featured plant an undesirable weed, ground cherry attracts many pollinators, including some specialist bees. The berries make tasty jam or pies and are a good food source for various birds, mammals, and even some turtles.

Several closely related Physalis species are native to most of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains. Clammy ground cherry (Physalis heterophylla) and smooth ground cherry (Physalis subglabrata) are prevalent in Iowa. Photographer and ecological consultant Leland Searles says he sees more of the smooth ground cherry along roadsides.

I took most of the enclosed pictures this month near the bank of Walnut Creek, where the Windsor Heights trail curves west toward Colby Park after passing Wal-Mart. The Illinois Wildflowers and Minnesota Wildflowers websites provide some tips on distinguishing the ground cherry species, and I think I was photographing smooth ground cherry–but I wouldn’t swear by that ID.

Revised from a Bleeding Heartland post first published ten years ago.

Republicans have polls in the field this week testing negative statements about Democrats and praise for their GOP opponents in targeted Iowa House races. Two years ago, similar surveys informed talking points used for Republican-funded direct mail or other kinds of advertising.

Activists often become angry when they hear biased or misleading claims about candidates they support. But if you want to help Democrats win elections, my number one piece of advice is do not hang up the phone.

Do not hang up the moment you hear an automated voice on the other end.

Do not hang up the moment you are asked to participate in a brief survey.

Do not hang up the moment you realize that the poll is asking skewed questions about your candidate.

Stay on the line and either start recording or grab a pen and paper.

Follow me after the jump for further instructions.

The monthlong search for University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts ended in heartbreak today. Cristhian Bahena Rivera led investigators to the victim’s body in a cornfield. He reportedly confessed to the crime and faces first-degree murder charges.

Because Rivera is from Mexico and has been living in this country without authorization for several years, Iowa’s top Republican elected officials moved quickly to blame Tibbetts’ tragic death on immigration policy.

Caleb Gates is a constituent of Representative Rod Blum in Linn County. -promoted by desmoinesdem

In 2014, the National Association for Gun Rights and Iowa Gun Owners sent then Congressional candidate Rod Blum their federal candidate survey about various gun-related issues. This survey (enclosed below) asked if Blum would support repealing the “Lautenberg Domestic Misdemeanor Gun Ban.” The Lautenberg Amendment, enacted in 1996 and named after Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, barred anyone convicted of domestic violence from purchasing a gun.

The Lautenberg Amendment also made it a crime to knowingly sell a firearm to anyone convicted of domestic violence. Domestic abuse victims need such protections because, according to the American Journal of Public Health, these victims are five times as likely to end up dead if their abuser can access a gun.

But Blum wanted to repeal the Lautenberg Amendment, in essence saying, wife-beaters and child-abusers should have guns.

Nearly three-quarters of Iowans who cast ballots in the June 5 primary were at least 50 years old, while only 12 percent were under age 35, a statewide statistical report shows.

Seven in ten Iowa Democratic primary voters this year were over age 50, while only one in seven who cast ballots were under 35.

Several well-funded Democratic candidates for governor or Congress devoted resources to engaging younger voters this year, which helped bring more millennials to the polls. But because turnout was high for all age groups compared to the party’s 2016 primary, older voters still dominated the electorate.

The new figures are a reminder to activists: while outreach to every cohort is important, our state simply doesn’t have enough young people to determine the outcome of a midterm election.

Julie Stauch has handled strategy, tactics, and management for campaigns, non-profits, and businesses. She managed Leonard Boswell’s 2002 re-election campaign. -promoted by desmoinesdem

“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” -Booker T. Washington

Leonard Boswell was a success by any measure. Perhaps the greatest measure is the one stated by Booker T. Washington, because Leonard faced many obstacles and marched right over every single one.

Bruce Lear examines some common mistakes by school districts “that help the critics take aim, fire, and reload on public education.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

In sports, we call them unforced errors. In real life, we call them dumb stuff that someone thinks is a good idea. I’m talking about decisions that, when implemented, leave most people scratching their heads wondering why we ever made that stupid choice in the first place. Yes, it’s “Monday morning quarterbacking,” but sometimes those Lazy Boy quarterbacks are right.

Like private business, public education sometimes suffers from unforced errors that make the critics howl and redouble their efforts to privatize. But remember “New Coke?” Few Americans believed the only way to solve that corporate problem was to dissolve the company and start guzzling large quantities of another brand. Instead, the problem was quickly fixed by going back to the tried and true recipe, and “New Coke” became a footnote on bad decision making. The company learned from the mistake.

Because public education is now under heavy fire from the likes of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her disciples, it’s hard for school leaders to look inward, examine some of their own mistakes, and find ways to avoid repeating them.

Former U.S. Representative Leonard Boswell passed away on August 17 at the age of 84. He had long battled a rare cancer called pseudomyxoma peritonei. Boswell publicly speculated in 2015 that exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War could have caused his abdominal tumors. According to a former staff member, a link to the powerful herbicide was later confirmed. In a recorded message to Iowa Democrats last year, Boswell said his doctors agreed that his disease stemmed from getting “pretty well soaked” while flying a crop-duster mission.

Surviving two tours of duty as an assault helicopter pilot in Vietnam was itself beating the odds. Boswell received numerous honors for his actions in that extremely dangerous role.

Following 20 years of military service, Boswell became a cattle farmer in southern Iowa. First elected to the Iowa Senate in 1984, he served three terms in the legislature, the last as Senate president. He was well-liked in Democratic circles. When I met him briefly during the 1994 campaign (he was the lieutenant governor nominee on a ticket with Bonnie Campbell), he seemed to have a larger-than-life personality.

After winning an open U.S. House seat in 1996, Boswell represented parts of central and southern Iowa in Congress for sixteen years. His proudest legislative accomplishment was sponsoring the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act, which President George W. Bush signed in 2007. Though he belonged to the conservative “Blue Dog” caucus, Boswell voted for the major legislation of President Barack Obama’s first term, including the economic stimulus bill and the Affordable Care Act.

Prospects for Democrats to gain ground in the Iowa Senate took a sharp turn for the worse over the past week. The party’s best pickup opportunity became a more difficult race when GOP incumbent Rick Bertrand unexpectedly decided to seek a third term after all. Meanwhile, Republicans landed their strongest possible candidate for a Democratic-held seat now open because of Senator Chaz Allen’s unexpected retirement.

Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker and Mahder Serekberhan, a recent graduate of Mt. Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, describe efforts to break cycles of hardship stemming from encounters with the criminal justice system. -promoted by desmoinesdem

The Linn County Board of Supervisors, the City of Cedar Rapids and Iowa Legal Aid have teamed up to offer a legal clinic this fall for Linn County residents seeking relief from the consequences stemming from encounters with the criminal justice system. This Expungement and Employment Barriers Resource Clinic will be held Saturday, September 22 in Cedar Rapids at the Linn County Community Services Building located at 1240 26th Ave Court SW.

Anyone who has experienced Iowa’s criminal justice system and needs help with expungement, court debt, background check issues, or obtaining a driver’s license or vehicle registration can sign up by visiting the Linn County Board of Supervisors website at www.linncounty.org, or by calling Iowa Legal Aid at 515-243-1193. In addition, the clinic will host several community organizations that will offer assistance with housing, financial planning, education, and other issues.

Whereas some summer wildflowers are difficult to distinguish from one another, you can’t mistake purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea) for anything else when it’s blooming. Beginning in June or early July, tiny purple flowers “bloom together as a flowery wreath” at the bottom of a cone-shaped spike, moving upward as the weeks pass. Sometimes known as violet prairie clover, this plant is native to much of the U.S. and Canada, except for states along the west and east coasts.

Many kinds of pollinators are attracted to purple prairie clover. The Minnesota Wildflowers website says the species “does well in a sunny home garden in average to dry soil.” The Illinois Wildflowers website notes, “The soil can contain significant amounts of loam, clay, sand, or gravel – this plant is rather indifferent to the characteristics of the soil, to which it adds nitrogen. Foliar disease is not troublesome. Purple Prairie Clover is slow to develop, but is fairly easy to manage if the site is well-drained and there is plenty of sun.”

Fun fact I hope no Bleeding Heartland readers will ever need to know: according to the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, “Tea can be made from vigorous taproot to reduce fever in measles victims. This plant is highly palatable and nutritious.”

Laura Hubka returned as chair the Howard County Democrats earlier this year after some time away from party leadership roles. She has long tried to bridge the gap between opposing factions in Democratic circles. -promoted by desmoinesdem

How many days until the mid-term election? Ask any “normal” person in Iowa and they probably could not tell you. As of today there are 83 days.

What could go wrong?

UPDATE: Tyler Higgs updated this article on October 21. Click here to skip to the updates below.

Second in a series by Tyler Higgs, an activist and former candidate for Waukee school board. He previously explored how to corrupt a school district. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Let’s say that you are a shady politician, and you want to take a whole lot of money from one source. Normally, campaign laws would require you to disclose your donor’s name, which could be problematic or politically damaging. Here’s how you can get around the laws:

1. Have your shady donor(s) hire an attorney to create a Limited Liability Company (LLC). That way, the business isn’t in the donor’s name and can’t be traced back to them.

2. Have your shady donor(s) put their money into the the LLC.

3. Accept all the money you want from the LLC. It doesn’t have to disclose who donated!

4. Hope your donor doesn’t send threats to people, exposing who they are.

A similar process seems to have occurred in Waukee.

Pictures of Governor Kim Reynolds and acting Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg are plastered all over the governor’s Iowa State Fair booth, contrary to the intent of a law Reynolds signed in June.

First in a series by Tyler Higgs, an activist and former candidate for Waukee school board. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Let’s say you are a corrupt school administrator, and you want to accept kickbacks from vendors, manipulate time cards, and/or take school property. If you work in Waukee, just go ahead and do it. In this instance, crime really pays. Based on what happened with the the district’s current chief operating officer Eric Rose, here’s what you can expect:

Rarely does a presidential candidate focus a stump speech on an out-of-the box idea. But in his first appearance before a large Iowa audience on August 10, Andrew Yang devoted much of his time to the “Freedom Dividend,” a proposal unlike anything I’ve heard on the caucus trail.

After the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding in Clear Lake, Yang spoke to Bleeding Heartland about how the U.S. could pay for a nationwide universal basic income plan. He also explained how he envisions selling the idea to voters who have heard politicians denigrate “hand-outs” and welfare for decades.

Democrats have opportunities to make big gains in the Iowa House this year. Thirteen of the 59 Republican-held seats in the lower chamber are open. A number of Democratic challengers have done well on fundraising, in some cases even out-raising the GOP incumbents in their districts. The past year’s special elections for Iowa House seats suggest that Democratic turnout may be much higher than the level seen in Iowa’s last two midterms, thanks to extreme laws enacted by statehouse Republicans and an unpopular president in Washington.

But winning a state legislative race often requires more than a favorable political environment. Bleeding Heartland observed in February that “the latest set of campaign financial disclosures reveal little sense of urgency among Democratic incumbents who could do much more to help others win competitive districts this November.”

Unfortunately, the latest fundraising numbers tell the same old story.

Jon Muller challenges a “Big Myth” about the economy, which drives some voters toward leftist candidates rather than more viable centrist Democrats. -promoted by desmoinesdem

I got wrapped up in a couple of heated arguments after this week’s special election in Ohio’s twelfth Congressional district. According to those sympathetic to the Green voters, the problem was a choice of two Republicans. This was a rehash of frustration surrounding Green Party voting in the 2016 general election in the Great Lakes states.

Whether that voting, either in 2016 or in OH-12, tipped the election is not pertinent. Rather, this is an exploration of their position and the underlying grievance. The rejection of a centrist Democrat dismisses two central realities:

Yet another special election for a U.S. House seat suggests a wave may be building. Although the Democratic candidate appears to have fallen short in Ohio’s twelfth district, the close result in what has long been a safe Republican seat should worry GOP leaders. Dan Guild noted that there are 68 Republican-held House districts where Hillary Clinton did better in November 2016 than she did in OH-12.

“[S]enior party strategists have concluded that over a dozen districts held by Republicans may already be unwinnable,” Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin reported for the New York Times on August 8.

Iowa’s first Congressional district may be one of the places where House leaders decide to cut their losses. But no one should write two-term Representative Rod Blum’s political obituary yet.

Some flowers are much more difficult to photograph than others. For years, I’ve wanted to feature yellow giant hyssop (Agastache nepetoides) in this series, but I have struggled to capture clear images of the tiny yellow flowers.

Ecological consultant Leland Searles came to the rescue. Not only is he one of Iowa’s best resources on native plants, he is also a gifted photographer. Leland has previously shared his pictures of Golden Alexanders, various sedges, northern prickly-ash, and the rare leatherleaf with Bleeding Heartland readers. This week he provided some gorgeous shots of yellow giant hyssop, including an incredible picture of a ruby-throated hummingbird sampling these flowers.

Yellow giant hyssop is native to most states in the eastern half of the United States. Leland noted that it is an “open woodland, savannah, or woods edge species.” I’ve seen some growing near trails and also deeper in the woods, in partial shade. I don’t recall finding it in plantings, but the related purple giant hyssop is now blooming in flowerbeds outside the Des Moines Public Library branch on Franklin and near the Meredith trail between Gray’s Lake and downtown Des Moines. Anise hyssop is shorter than either of its relatives and is most easily identified by the scent of a crushed leaf.