Among the dozens of potentially competitive Iowa House and Senate races (a collateral benefit of our state’s non-partisan redistricting process), the contest in House district 51 will be one of the most closely watched. GOP State Representative Josh Byrnes immediately put this northeast Iowa seat on the top tier of Democratic pickup opportunities when he decided not to run for re-election. The district covers Worth, Mitchell, and Howard counties, plus a small area in Winneshiek County, not including Decorah. Scroll down to view a map.

Democrat Tim Hejhal, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Air National Guard and principal of Osage High School (Mitchell County), is running against Republican Jane Bloomingdale, an accountant and tax preparer who is mayor of Northwood (Worth County), where she previously served 17 years on the city council. Hejhal and Bloomingdale were unopposed in their respective party primaries. A former Iowa GOP State Central Committee member who had declared plans to run in district 51 did not file for the seat. I enclose more background on Hejhal below; I was unable to find an official campaign biography for Bloomingdale.

House district 51 is a must-win seat for Democrats hoping to gain control of the state House, where the party currently holds 43 of the 100 seats. Though the GOP has a registration advantage, the plurality of voters are affiliated with neither party. According to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, House district 51 contains 5,139 active registered Democrats, 6,418 Republicans, and 7,811 no-party voters. President Barack Obama received 55.19 percent of the vote among the district’s residents in 2012. Only two Iowa House districts currently held by Republicans voted to re-elect the president by a larger margin. One of them was House district 58, another open seat in eastern Iowa likely to be targeted by both parties.

Whether either party’s presidential candidate will have coat-tails here is hard to guess. In the February 1 caucuses, Donald Trump narrowly won Mitchell and Howard counties, nearly tying Ted Cruz in Worth. Hillary Clinton carried Mitchell County, while Bernie Sanders won Howard and Worth.

Intensifying the focus on this part of the state, House district 51 makes up half of Senate district 26, where Republican Waylon Brown is challenging State Senator Mary Jo Wilhelm. Both parties and a number of interest groups are heavily involved in that Senate race, which could determine control of the upper chamber. Democrats have had a campaign office up and running in Osage since early May. Iowa House districts are small enough for candidates to reach a significant percentage of voters in person, and Hejhal has been working the doors here, as have volunteers on his behalf. Bloomingdale has done some canvassing too and has had a campaign presence at various summer parades and festivals.

Neither candidate has raised much money for this race. Hejhal reported $2,650.00 in contributions through early May, and Bloomingdale took in $3,700 during the same period, loaning her campaign $500 as well. Through early July, Hejhal brought in another $5,020.00 and Bloomingdale raised another $5,825. (All contributions to both candidates came from individuals rather than political action committees.) The bulk of the money spent on this race will come from Democratic and Republican leadership committees.

Any comments on this or other state legislative campaigns are welcome in this thread.

Maridith Morris is a registered nurse and the Democratic challenger to State Representative Jake Highfill in Iowa House district 39. -promoted by desmoinesdem

A recent American College of Gynecology study uncovered concerning data about maternal mortality from Texas. Since 2011 the number of women dying during the time of pregnancy and childbirth doubled in only two years, from 18.8 to nearly 40 deaths per 100,000 live births.

The study’s authors found the data “puzzling,”-stating that-, “in the absence of war, natural disaster, or severe economic upheaval, the doubling of a mortality rate within a 2-year period in a state with almost 400,000 annual births seems unlikely.” However, when we compare the shift in data to Texas’ legislative attacks on women’s healthcare, the trend makes sense.

So much for an “unofficial” role: Governor Terry Branstad, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, and Republican power-broker Bruce Rastetter are among more than 60 people named this morning to Donald Trump’s “Agricultural Advisory Committee.” Its “executive board members will convene on a regular basis,” according to a news release I’ve posted after the jump. Note that the campaign statement misspells Northey’s name and describes Rastetter as having hosted the “first Republican Presidential debate.” Actually, Rastetter organized an Iowa Ag Summit at which nine presidential contenders (not including Trump) appeared in March 2015. New Jersey journalist Claude Brodesser-Akner was the first to report Branstad’s and Rastetter’s involvement as Trump advisers last week.

The other Iowans on the list released today are:

• Sam Clovis, who traded in his conservative and religious principles last summer to become Trump’s “national chief policy advisor”;

• former State Representative Annette Sweeney, a friend of Rastetter’s since childhood who chaired the Iowa House Agriculture Committee until redistricting forced her into a losing primary battle against fellow House Republican Pat Grassley. She was a key player in passing Iowa’s unconstitutional “ag gag bill,” the first of its kind in the country. Soon after finishing her legislative service, Sweeney became president of a public policy group called Iowa Agri-Women.

• Ron Heck, identified as an Iowa farmer and past president of the American Soybean Association.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread. Northey is widely expected to run for governor in 2018 rather than seek a fourth term as secretary of agriculture. His likely opponents in a GOP gubernatorial primary include Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds and Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett. While the lieutenant governor has repeatedly urged Iowans to vote for Trump at public events, Corbett has wisely kept some distance between himself and the presidential nominee. He steered clear of Trump’s rally in Cedar Rapids on July 28.

A Calhoun County judge has dismissed a short-lived criminal case that never should have been filed. Homer Martz was arrested last week and charged under Iowa’s flag desecration statute, because he “flew a U.S. flag upside down under a Chinese flag.” An upside-down flag is a widely recognized distress signal. Martz was protesting the Dakota Access (Bakken) pipeline, which will run near his Calhoun County home.

Trouble is, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt ruled in December 2014, “Conduct involving the American flag has long been recognized by the United States Supreme Court as expressive communication that falls within the protection of the First Amendment.” Click here for the full opinion in that case, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa on behalf of Westboro Baptist Church members who had dragged the flag on the ground while trying to disrupt military funerals.

Word of that court decision didn’t reach law enforcement in Calhoun County. David Pitt reported for the Associated Press on August 15,

Calhoun County Attorney Tina Meth Farrington filed a motion to dismiss the charges Monday, saying that she read the 2014 federal ruling and concluded she shouldn’t pursue the charge.

“The Legislature should take immediate action to repeal this law so that other citizens and law enforcement are not caught in this type of situation again,” she said.

A judge approved the motion Monday afternoon.

Calhoun County Sheriff William Davis said at the time Martz was arrested, he and the two arresting officers were unaware the law had been struck down.

When I was growing up, flag protection laws and constitutional amendments were a salient topic, as Republicans exploited a tiny number of flag-burners on the left in search of a wedge to use against Democrats. In recent years, some conservatives have displayed upside-down flags to protest President Barack Obama or his policies. On a busy corner in Windsor Heights, an upside-down flag flew for several weeks in late 2014, presumably to communicate the homeowner’s view of the president’s executive orders on immigration policy.

We can debate whether an unconventional flag display is an effective tool for political persuasion. But no matter how deeply offensive the message may be to some Americans, there is no legal recourse against those who use or abuse a flag to make their point.

Of all the cultural changes in Iowa since I grew up here during the 1970s and 1980s, few are more striking or more inspiring than the growing acceptance for LGBT people. When I was a teenager at Valley High School in West Des Moines, no kids were “out” in our student body or at any other Iowa high school, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain by talking to peers my age. A few of my Valley classmates came out soon after starting college, but I could never have imagined Iowa high school students openly identifying as LGBT. Now gay-straight alliances are active in at least 80 Iowa high schools. Students from much smaller communities than West Des Moines have not only come out, but become leaders in their communities, forming support groups and raising awareness of anti-LGBT discrimination that remains. Even some Iowans attending Catholic high schools have fought to create safe spaces for LGBT students.

In recent years, several transgender teens have sought not just acceptance but understanding of issues they face in high school, including at my alma mater.

Ben Christiason of Cedar Falls set another milestone by becoming Iowa’s first openly transgender high school athlete. I heard of him for the first time in June, when he was among more than a dozen graduating seniors honored at the Eychaner Foundation‘s Matthew Shepard Scholarship dinner. The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa awarded its annual Robert Mannheimer Youth Advocacy Award to Christiason because of “his pioneering role in transgender equality.” I enclose that announcement below, along with excerpts from Courtney Crowder’s excellent profile of Christiason, which the Des Moines Register published earlier this month. Crowder’s piece on other transgender children in Iowa is a must-read as well.

The non-profit Iowa Safe Schools is hosting Iowa’s First Annual Trans Educational Conference this November, hoping to enlighten “school administrators, school board members, educators, healthcare providers, youth-serving professionals, and parents” about “the specific needs of trans and gender non-conforming students” in communities of all sizes.

UPDATE: A new national poll of millennials provides the latest evidence that LGBT equality is becoming a consensus issue for the younger generation of Americans. Added the toplines below.

While Republican insiders across the country despair about the presidential race, dozens urging the Republican National Committee to stop investing in Donald Trump, others wishing in vain that Trump would drop out, and some even quitting their political jobs, Iowa’s most influential Republicans continue to stand with the GOP nominee.

This week, Governor Terry Branstad confirmed plans to advise Trump on policy; his major influencer Bruce Rastetter will reportedly do the same. In addition, two other well-known GOP operatives took on formal roles in Trump’s Iowa campaign. Jamie Johnson will be coalitions director and Jake Ketzner a senior advisor. Johnson is a veteran of Rick Santorum’s 2012 presidential bid. After a spell supporting Ted Cruz, he landed with Rick Perry’s short-lived campaign this cycle. An ordained minister, he will presumably focus on engaging evangelical Christians, a key constituency for Santorum in 2012 and for Cruz this year. Jake Ketzner managed Representative Steve King’s re-election campaign in 2012, the year he faced Christie Vilsack in a substantially redrawn district. Ketzner left Branstad’s staff for a lobbying job last summer and soon became a senior adviser to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s Iowa caucus campaign.

Why are more respectable Republicans joining what looks like a sinking ship? For one thing, the latest public polls show Trump running better in Iowa than in national polls or surveys in swing states with more diverse populations. So even if Trump gets blown out nationally, working on his campaign here might not be a liability, especially if he carries Iowa or loses by a relatively small margin. Also, hitching your wagon to a toxic nominee is less risky when your state’s governor, lieutenant governor, GOP U.S. senators and representatives are giving you cover. UPDATE: Forgot to mention that going all-in for Trump helped our state’s establishment secure a promise from the nominee that if he’s elected, the Iowa caucuses will remain first in the nominating calendar.

Neither Branstad nor any Republicans who represent Iowa in Congress have responded to my questions about worrying aspects of Trump’s candidacy. To my knowledge, only two GOP elected officials in Iowa have publicly ruled out voting for Trump: State Senator David Johnson and Hardin County Auditor Jessica Lara. Tips are welcome if readers know of other GOP officials willing to say #NeverTrump. I’ve sought comment from many whom I considered “likely suspects.”

Several experienced Iowa campaign operatives have said they won’t vote for the GOP nominee, including David Kochel, a former strategist for Mitt Romney and senior figure in Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign. Justin Arnold, former state political director for Marco Rubio, explained in a March op-ed column for the Des Moines Register why he would not support Trump under any circumstances. He announced earlier this month that he has joined the direct mail and political consulting firm Majority Strategies. That company’s clients include U.S. Representative Rod Blum (IA-01) and at least one Iowa GOP state committee.

Joel Kurtinitis, a onetime staffer on Ron Paul’s presidential campaign and former Republican State Central Committee member, published a blistering commentary at The Blaze on Friday: Five Things You Can Never Say Again After Voting Trump. I enclose below excerpts from a piece that social conservatives might describe as “convicting.”

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s campaign continues to build a strong field operation in Iowa and other battleground states, while Trump’s ground game is remarkably weak and in some areas literally missing in action.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. The Iowa State Fair opened on Thursday and runs through Sunday, August 21. A summer cold moving systematically through our household has so far kept us from the fairgrounds, but we will get there once or twice this week. Bleeding Heartland has previously published my best advice for enjoying the fair, especially in the company of young children. The schedule of candidates speaking at the Des Moines Register’s “soapbox” near the administration building is here. Like Brad Anderson, I was surprised Senator Chuck Grassley passed on the opportunity. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, though. Grassley tends to avoid putting public events on his schedule in Polk and several other large-population counties.

A poll in the field is testing some negative messages about Jim Mowrer, the Democratic challenger to Representative David Young in Iowa’s third Congressional district. Details are after the jump, based on a report from a Bleeding Heartland reader who received the call on Friday. I will update this post as needed if I get the call myself or other respondents share further details.

IA-03 is among the most competitive U.S. House races, with an even partisan voter index and an incumbent serving his first term in a district President Barack Obama carried in 2012. Early last year, the National Republican Congressional Committee put Young in its “Patriot Program” for vulnerable House members. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Mowrer to its “Red to Blue” program shortly after the June primary election. According to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, the sixteen counties in IA-03 contain 161,156 active registered Democrats, 172,272 Republicans, and 153,533 no-party voters.

The Justice Department issued a horrifying report this week on Baltimore Police Department conduct. Reading about widespread racial discrimination, gender bias during sexual assault investigations, and unconstitutional strip searches and arrests by Baltimore officers, I hoped nothing that bad routinely happens in Iowa but wondered how police departments here would withstand such scrutiny.

The racial disparities in our state’s criminal justice system have long been among the largest in the country, landing Iowa on multiple lists of the “worst places” for black people. Statistics on arrests and prison populations don’t prove police acted improperly in any specific case, but they may signal racial profiling or other systemic problems.

Those statistics don’t reflect every questionable interaction between law enforcement and people in minority communities. Three cases that didn’t result in any prison sentences nonetheless point to excessive uses of force by Waterloo police against black residents.

Suffolk University’s new poll of Iowa “likely voters” shows Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by 41 percent to 40 percent in a two-way race and by 37 percent to 36 percent in a field including Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson (6 percent) and the Green Party’s Jill Stein (3 percent). Suffolk’s news release noted that 53 percent of respondents expect Clinton to win the election, while 31 percent think Trump will win, and 16 percent were unsure. A higher share of respondents thought Trump was “honest and trustworthy” (34 percent) than said the same of Clinton (29 percent). Johnson did best in Iowa’s southwest counties, while Stein had 9 percent support among respondents between the ages of 18 and 34, a group presumably including a lot of Bernie Sanders backers.

After the jump I’ve posted a few more numbers that caught my eye from Suffolk’s full results and cross-tabs, along with excerpts from Jason Noble’s reports for the Des Moines Register this week on the likely paths to victory for Trump and Clinton in Iowa.

Suffolk found U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley ahead of Democratic challenger Patty Judge by 52 percent to 42 percent–the same margin as in the Marist poll released Tuesday. However, the Marist survey indicated a slight lead for Clinton in the presidential race. Grassley’s favorability numbers in the Suffolk poll were good for an incumbent on the ballot: 54.4 percent favorable, 31 percent unfavorable. Judge was not nearly as well known, with 32.4 percent of respondents expressing a favorable opinion and 27.8 percent an unfavorable one.

Hillary Clinton came to Iowa yesterday for the first time since the February 1 caucuses. After visiting the Des Moines t-shirt shop Raygun, she spoke primarily about economic policies to a packed Lincoln High School gymnasium.

During the rally, a woman jumped over the barricade and ran toward the stage. Several Secret Service agents tackled her, while Clinton showed remarkable composure as she kept delivering her stump speech. The protester was apparently representing the “Direct Action Everywhere” community, trying to call attention to “Hillary’s support for Costco and other corporate animal abusers.”

As a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union, I support anyone’s right to protest peacefully, to hold up signs, and even to disrupt a political event by shouting taunts or slogans (though heckling’s not my personal style). But rushing the stage is not an acceptable form of protest, especially right after the Republican presidential candidate hinted that “Second Amendment people” might be the only way to stop Clinton from appointing judges to the federal bench.

So I was disturbed last night to see former State Senator Tom Fiegen advocate more barricade jumping at Clinton campaign events.

Large yellow flowerheads are abundant this time of year along roadsides and on almost any Iowa prairie, even small remnants or restoration projects. You may find cup plants, compass plants, yellow coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, brown-eyed Susans, rosinweed (soon to be featured at Bleeding Heartland), Jerusalem artichokes, common sunflowers, Maximilian sunflowers, or today’s plant.

Ox-eye (Heliopsis helianthoides) is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. Also known as false sunflower, oxeye sunflower, smooth oxeye, or sweet smooth oxeye, it has a longer blooming period than many prairie flowers. The shape of the leaves and the raised flower centers, which are yellow or orange, help distinguish ox-eye from other members of the aster family with yellow flowerheads. Ox-eye grows in wooded areas and on disturbed ground as well as in prairies.

A huge colony of ox-eye is thriving at a rest stop on the north side of I-80 near Bettendorf (Scott County), where I took most of the enclosed pictures in July. As a bonus, I included a few shots of goldenrod plants with an unusual feature.

New Jersey journalist Claude Brodesser-Akner had the scoop today for NJ.com: Donald Trump’s soon-to-be-announced economic advisers include Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and “Bruce Rastetter, a multimillionaire livestock and bio-fuel tycoon who insiders say is also a leading candidate to be Trump’s agriculture secretary.” They

will advise Trump on agribusiness and energy policy, according to a source within the Trump campaign who was not authorized to speak publicly about the move.

“There’s a clear nexus between [New Jersey Governor Chris] Christie, the Branstads and Rastetter,” explained one Iowa GOP insider familiar with all three men’s dealings with one another but who was fearful of alienating the Iowa governor by speaking out publicly.

Rastetter helped talk Branstad into running for governor again in 2009 and was his campaign’s top donor in 2010. He has exerted substantial influence since Branstad returned to office in 2011, speaking to the governor “at least once a week.” Rastetter tried to recruit Christie to run for president in 2011 and endorsed him in a highly-publicized event last September. Though Branstad did not endorse any presidential candidate before the Iowa caucuses, several people close to him were involved in Christie’s campaign.

Branstad’s spokesperson Ben Hammes confirmed via e-mail that the governor “was asked to advise Mr. Trump in an unofficial role. He will be offering his advice on important issues to Iowa, none more important than renewable fuels.” Iowa Republicans have seized on a recent report by Reuters, suggesting that as president, Hillary Clinton might change federal policy on the Renewable Fuel Standard, a mandate for biofuels blends into gasoline. The governor’s son Eric Branstad is running Trump’s general election campaign in Iowa, having coordinated an ethanol industry group‘s political efforts here before the caucuses.

Hammes declined to comment on Rastetter’s possible role in the Trump campaign or a prospective Trump cabinet. At this writing, Rastetter’s office has not responded to my inquiry. The man often described as an “ethanol baron” sought to enhance his reputation as an authority on agriculture policy last year, when he organized an Iowa Ag Summit, attended by nine presidential hopefuls and a who’s who of Iowa GOP elected officials. Though Rastetter would surely want to have a strong voice in any Republican administration, I have trouble seeing him in a cabinet secretary’s role, with many public events and press availabilities. The way Trump’s poll numbers are looking lately, we will likely never find out whether Rastetter was really the top contender to head the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

UPDATE: According to Cedar Rapids Gazette columnist Todd Dorman, Rastetter met privately with Trump not long before the nominee’s July 28 rally in Cedar Rapids. Excerpts from that story are after the jump, along with comments Hammes provided to Gazette reporter Vanessa Miller.

The first public poll of Iowa since the Republican and Democratic national conventions shows Hillary Clinton slightly ahead of Donald Trump by 41 percent to 37 percent. Marist surveyed 899 registered voters for NBC News and the Wall Street Journal between August 3 and 7, producing a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percent. In last month’s Marist poll of Iowans, Clinton led by 42 percent to 39 percent.

When the 2016 presidential race is expanded to four candidates – including Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein – Clinton and Trump are tied at 35 percent each in Iowa, with Johnson at 12 percent and Stein at 6 percent. (Last month in the state, Clinton and Trump were tied in the four-way horserace at 37 percent.)

Historically, third-party presidential candidates have received far fewer votes in November than their summer poll numbers would suggest. But even assuming Marist is greatly overstating support for Johnson and Stein, those candidates could set records for their respective parties in Iowa. No Libertarian presidential candidate has ever surpassed 1 percent of the vote in our state. The Green Party’s best showing in a presidential election here was roughly 2.2 percent, which Ralph Nader received in 2000.

Both major-party presidential candidates are underwater among Iowa voters on favorability. Some 36 percent of Marist’s respondents have a favorable view of Clinton, 58 percent unfavorable. Those would be terrible numbers if Trump weren’t in even worse shape at 31 percent favorable, 64 percent unfavorable in the same poll. Without seeing more detailed results, it’s hard to tell which candidate has more room to grow support. Some recent surveys have found that remaining undecided voters “lean toward being [Bernie] Sanders holdouts,” which could mean more potential growth for Clinton than for Trump. That said, I’m 100 times more confident that Clinton will win 270 electoral votes than I am of her carrying Iowa. She is generally polling better in states that are more diverse than Iowa, where more than 86 percent of residents are non-Hispanic whites.

UPDATE: Nate Cohn pointed out that Iowa is the state “where Democrats are most dependent on less [educated] white voters.” Non-college-educated whites were a big part of Barack Obama’s winning coalition here. According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 26.4 percent of Iowans who are at least 25 years old have a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education.

Marist found U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley leading Democratic challenger Patty Judge by 52 percent to 42 percent. That’s a smaller lead for Grassley than he has enjoyed in most of his re-election campaigns, but better than the single-digit leads other pollsters found for the senator earlier this summer. Iowa Republicans will be encouraged to see Grassley above the 50 percent mark. The senator confirmed to Radio Iowa today that he is still supporting Trump for president, citing scheduling conflicts to explain his absence from the GOP nominee’s rallies in Davenport and Cedar Rapids on July 28 and in Des Moines on August 5. In a statement I enclose below, Judge demanded that Grassley explain “exactly what Donald Trump meant” when he said today at a North Carolina rally, “If she [Hillary Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know” (full comments here).

In related news, Senator Joni Ernst’s office has not yet responded to my request for comment on the extraordinary public letter released yesterday by 50 former high-ranking national security officials in Republican administrations, explaining why they will not vote for Trump. Ernst has repeatedly depicted Trump as the best candidate to keep America safe, but the former security officials warned Trump “would be a dangerous President,” lacking the requisite “character, values, experience,” or “temperament,” while displaying “little understanding of America’s vital national interests” and “alarming ignorance of basic facts of contemporary international politics.”

SECOND UPDATE: Added below some other findings from the Marist poll; click here for full results.

Carrie Clogg shares her disturbing experience at Donald Trump’s August 5 rally in Des Moines–quite unlike what happened to Pete McRoberts when he quietly held up a copy of the U.S. Constitution at the same event. -promoted by desmoinesdem

On Friday, August 5, I attended the Iowa Arts Summit in Des Moines. When I arrived at Wells Fargo arena that morning I noticed the parking lot was full of tv vans and I quickly learned that we would be sharing the building with a rally for Donald Trump. I am a Democrat and I strongly believe in the power of hearing both sides. I have attended events for both Democrats and Republicans throughout my life, but have never experienced anything like this. Here is an exact account of my experience.

Three weeks ago today, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst took the stage at the Republican National Convention to make the case for Donald Trump and bash Hillary Clinton, particularly on issues related to foreign policy and the military. For those who missed the speech, I’ve embedded the video at the end of this post. The full text is available here.

Other controversies of the day overshadowed the substance of Ernst’s remarks, delivered late in the evening to an “almost empty” hall. Most of the senator’s statements about Clinton and Trump were matters of opinion. However, Erin Jordan of the Cedar Rapids Gazette zeroed in on one verifiable claim: “According to the FBI, ISIS is present in all 50 states. Think about it for a moment — terrorists from ISIS are in every one of our 50 states.”

After researching federal data on terrorism and the material Ernst’s office provided in support of her assertions, Jordan gave Ernst an “F.” But Ernst refuses to acknowledge that she distorted and exaggerated what FBI investigators have found.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome. Here are some links that caught my eye during the past few days; excerpts from several of the articles and columns are after the jump.

Donald Trump’s advocacy for policies that serve Russian interests continue to set off alarm bells for those who are familiar with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership style. In an op-ed for today’s New York Times, former CIA Director Michael Morrell explained why he is publicly endorsing a presidential candidate (Hillary Clinton) for the first time: “Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.”

At this writing, none of Trump’s most prominent Iowa Republican endorsers (Governor Terry Branstad, Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, Representatives Rod Blum, David Young, and Steve King) have responded to my e-mails seeking comment on Trump’s Russia connections and other worrying aspects of his candidacy. UPDATE: Clinton’s campaign is now highlighting “Trump’s bizarre relationship with Russia.” Scroll to the end of this post for more.

If weakening the NATO alliance, running down parents of a veteran who died in wartime service, and refusing to release tax returns don’t raise enough red flags, Iowa Republicans could read up on the GOP nominee’s connections with organized crime figures. Timothy L. O’Brien reviewed some evidence for Bloomberg. Two journalists who covered Trump and the casino industry for decades have discussed Trump’s mob ties in greater detail: David Cay Johnston in this article for Politico and Wayne Barrett in an interview with CNN.

Fact-checkers have found that Clinton is much more truthful than Trump, or as Nicholas Kristof put it, “Clinton is about average for a politician in dissembling, while Trump is a world champion who is pathological in his dishonesty.” Former Wall Street Journal reporter Neil Barsky had more to say here about Trump’s lies and poor results in business.

Meanwhile, large segments of the Republican base remain convinced Clinton is a liar or worse. Chants of “Lock her up” are now a staple of Trump rallies in Iowa and elsewhere. Matthew Rezab reported for the Carroll Daily Times Herald on August 2 that at last weekend’s parade to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the fire department in the small town of Arcadia (Carroll County), children were encouraged to throw water balloons at one float, featuring “a man dressed in an orange jumpsuit and Hillary Clinton mask while standing on a platform inside bars, fencing and barbed wire above a ‘Hillary For Prison’ sign tacked onto the side.”

Several national polls, including today’s release by the Washington Post and ABC News, reinforce what Dan Guild noted here a few days ago: Clinton got a larger bounce out of her party’s national convention and is well-positioned going into the final months of the presidential campaign. No public polls from Iowa have come out since the conventions; I’m curious to see whether the state of the race has changed here. Iowa is expected to be among the most closely-contested states this fall. The Washington Post/ABC poll findings on support for Clinton and Trump by education level are stunning. I enclose excerpts from the write-up below.

Final note: Iowa’s annual two-day sales tax holiday is happening this weekend. In theory, the temporary break is supposed to stimulate the economy. The Iowa Policy Project’s experts have been saying for years that the policy is a sham. In her latest column for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Lynda Waddington compiled more evidence for scrapping this 16-year Iowa tradition.

First-person accounts of campaign events are always welcome here. -promoted by desmoinesdem

I attended today’s Trump campaign rally as a result of my concerns over the way the candidate treated the Gold Star family whose son was killed while on duty overseas as an Army officer. I wanted to draw some quiet attention to Iowans’ and Iowa’s history in affirmatively protecting the Constitution and how we have all benefited from that.

After 25 years of weekly publication, central Iowa’s self-styled alternative paper Cityview is now a monthly targeting “higher-income demographics,” publisher Shane Goodman explained in the final weekly edition.

We know that readers want even more of our alternative style of reporting, but we also recognize that advertisers’ needs are changing. They want glossy paper stock. They want to reach higher-income demographics. They want digital editions and social media connections. And they don’t see the need to advertise on a weekly basis like they once did. With advertising as our sole source of revenue, we need to do all we can to accommodate these needs, or we won’t survive the next 25 years. As a result, this is our last weekly issue of Cityview, and you will see a new and improved monthly edition on the stands and online starting Aug. 11. It will continue to have much of the content you have come to know and love, but it will also have a number of new features and will be printed on glossy and high-bright stock paper, in a larger format, with more pages — in both print and digital formats.

I’ll be surprised to see any investigative journalism in the “new and improved” Cityview, based on the “2016 media kit” the publication is shopping around to advertisers. Gavin Aronsen posted that document in his excellent analysis of the weekly’s “sad decline.” I’ve enclosed some excerpts below, but do click through to read the whole Iowa Informer piece. Aronsen flagged some questionable articles and columns, as well as a sexist dark side to what Goodman approvingly called a “testosterone-driven approach” to news coverage. The Iowa Informer post did not mention what I consider one of Cityview’s lowest points: the editors’ disgraceful slut-shaming of former Des Moines Public Schools superintendent Nancy Sebring. Bleeding Heartland discussed that episode here.

In other central Iowa media news, KCCI-TV reporters Emmy Victor and Vanessa Peng are leaving for jobs in other states. Victor told the Des Moines Register this week that the racism she sometimes encountered while working in Iowa “did not help my decision to stay.” That should be embarrassing (but not surprising) for white Iowans. As a place to live, our state has many wonderful attributes, but we won’t make any nationwide top-10 lists for tolerance of diversity. On the contrary: Iowa has been named one of the “worst states for Black people,” and two Iowa metro areas made a list of ten cities across the country with “the worst racial inequality.”

Earlier this summer, Victor gained national attention after being charged at by a woman screaming racial abuse while on location. The reporter handled herself well during what must have been a scary event. I hope she never experiences anything like it again. I did not agree with KCCI’s decision to make a big news story out of a distraught mother’s meltdown, though. Like Damon Young, I don’t mean to excuse the woman’s behavior, but she had just watched her son get fatally shot by police near where the KCCI crew set up. Victor has not responded to my questions about whether she or KCCI pressed assault charges over that incident.

Dan Guild follows up on his deep dive into the history of convention bounces. You can read his past writing for this site here and here. -promoted by desmoinesdem

On July 20th I suggested we would probably know who the next President is after the conventions are over. That post noted that since 1996 the average bounce out of a convention was 6.1 percent. Let’s look at how that compares with the bounces out of the two conventions just completed.

Essentially, the conventions were very close to the historical average. Importantly, though, Clinton appears to have picked about 2 points from where the race stood before the two conventions.

Whether you are a novice or seasoned professional, finding a “new” species is exciting for nature-lovers. Many thanks to Leland Searles for sharing this essay and beautiful photos. -promoted by desmoinesdem

At the end of a hot, dusty day on the gravel roads of Marion County, I braked the Honda van to a stop at a t-intersection. I had pushed hard to finish as many miles of roadside survey as possible, stopping each quarter mile to note the vegetation on each side of the road. Mostly I saw brome and reed canary grass, wild parsnip and wild carrot, giant ragweed and sheep fescue. Often enough there were stands of Jerusalem artichoke or common milkweed.

The t-intersection brought a decision. Do I drive a half mile on the county hardtop to a short, unnamed gravel road, one that I missed two days earlier, and have a look? I could see it from the stop sign: a sea of crop land on either side, an old fenceline leading a quarter mile to a farmstead. Not a big deal. Time to go home.

Sometimes a whimsical curiosity emerges, gently, gaining force, wanting recognition. I drove the half mile, turned and rolled twenty feet to a stop, looked out the window onto the fence and soybeans that were almost neon in the yellowing light. Not much here.

Curiosity again. What’s ahead in fifty feet? The accelerator moved gently down. Another stop. Brome grass out the driver’s window, the fenceline on the other side. Something between me and the fence, a native sedge, already gone to seed, its yellow leaves standing out among the darker grasses. Probably Carex grisea. Not very interesting. I should head home.