Teen births drop nationwide and in Iowa

The U.S. teen birth rate reached “a historic low in 2010,” according to data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control this week. Iowa was among 47 states where the birth rate for teenagers fell significantly from 2007 to 2010, and Iowa’s rate of 28.6 births per 1,000 teenagers was ranked 34th nationwide. More details are after the jump.

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Iowa joins antitrust suit over e-book price-fixing

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller was one of 16 state attorneys general to file a federal antitrust lawsuit yesterday against Apple Inc. and three major U.S. publishers. The complaint alleges that the publishers and Apple conspired to raise prices on electronic books, causing consumers to be overcharged by more than $100 million. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a similar lawsuit against Apple and two publishers in a different federal court.

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175 Chickens in 1 Minute?!

(Click here for background on this policy change. A lot of poultry inspectors don't like the idea. - promoted by desmoinesdem)

You’d think the USDA would see the flaw of logic in letting the people who make the food inspect the food and decide if it is actually safe to eat.

The USDA has decided in its infinite wisdom, despite pink slime and a few other debacles of the food industry, to test a program allowing chicken companies to check their own livestock and decide whether or not the chickens are safe to eat.

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Lean finely textured beef/"pink slime" linkfest

Competing rallies about lean finely textured beef took place on the Iowa State University campus yesterday. Governor Terry Branstad, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds, and Representative Steve King were among the speakers at a rally supporting continued use of the additive used in some ground beef. Before that event, some family farmers joined activists at a rally to “to protest the collusion between industrial meat production and our political system.”

It’s time for a new Bleeding Heartland thread about lean finely textured beef, known to detractors as “pink slime.” A dozen links to news and commentary about this controversy are after the jump.

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Branstad endorses Romney, Santorum drops out

I thought Governor Chet Culver was late to the party when he endorsed Barack Obama a month after the 2008 Iowa caucuses. At that time it was still unclear who would prevail in the Democratic primaries. In contrast, there’s no suspense left in this year’s GOP nominating process. Governor Terry Branstad finally declared today that Republicans should “coalesce around one candidate.”

Meanwhile, Rick Santorum is holding a press conference this afternoon to announce that he is ending his presidential campaign.

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Iowa Senate approves education reform bill

The Iowa Senate approved a broad education reform bill yesterday on a party-line vote of 26 to 24. Details on Senate File 2284 and the floor debate in the upper chamber are after the jump.

I’ve also included the latest news on efforts to stop Iowa school districts from starting the academic year before September 1. If state lawmakers don’t act on that proposal, Governor Terry Branstad may try to force the issue.

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Iowa GOP senator Bertrand wins defamation case over 2010 ad

A Sioux City jury awarded Republican State Senator Rick Bertrand $231,000 over a television commercial that attacked him shortly before the 2010 general election. It is rare for a defamation case based on political advertising to succeed, for reasons explained below.

UPDATE: Governor Terry Branstad suggested on April 9 that this verdict has got him thinking about suing the Democratic Governors Association over their 2010 campaign materials. Details are at the end of this post.

LATER UPDATE: Incredibly, Bertrand is appealing this verdict in order to seek punitive damages as well as the compensatory damages the jury awarded. More comments below.

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Weekend open thread: Easter and Passover edition

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

If you are celebrating Easter or Passover, I hope you’re enjoying the spring holiday with friends or family. I tried an Italian haroset recipe for last night’s Passover seder–the recipe is after the jump.

UPDATE: Senator Chuck Grassley caused a bit of an uproar in the Twitterverse Saturday with this bon mot:

Constituents askd why i am not outraged at PresO attack on supreme court independence. Bcause Am ppl r not stupid as this x prof of con law

SECOND UPDATE: CBS news legend Mike Wallace has died at age 93. Morley Safer remembers his former colleague, and CBS posted other reflections, photos, and video clips at that link.

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Guilty verdict in second trial of Iowa Occupy protesters

A Polk County District Court jury returned a guilty verdict this afternoon in the trespassing trial of Hugh Espey and David Goodner. According to the Des Moines Register, jurors deliberated for nine hours before reaching a verdict. It was the second prosecution of Occupy protesters arrested last October on the state capitol grounds. Last month a Polk County jury acquitted former State Representative Ed Fallon on the same trespassing charge, accepting his First Amendment defense.

Background on this week’s trial is after the jump. UPDATE: Defense attorney Sally Frank is likely to appeal. Scroll down for details.

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Updated voter registration numbers in Iowa's Congressional districts

Iowa Republican leaders were thrilled to learn this week that active registered Republicans outnumber active registered Democrats in this state for the first time since 2006. The Secretary of State’s office is working with county auditors on voter list maintenance. Voters whose addresses cannot be confirmed are being moved off the active lists, and in many counties, more Democrats than Republicans are being shifted to “inactive” status. Inactive voters are still eligible to vote in Iowa, but they must show ID at the polling station in order to vote on election day.

The Republican voter registration edge is likely to grow, because there are many more competitive GOP than Democratic primaries for the Iowa House and Senate. Republicans also have competitive primaries in two of the four Congressional districts, whereas Democrats have two candidates only in IA-02. On June 5, a significant number of Democrats and no-party voters will switch to the GOP in order to vote in a primary.

After the jump I’ve posted updated active voter registration numbers for Democrats, Republicans, and no-party voters in all 99 Iowa counties, grouped by Congressional district. The data come from this page on the Iowa Secretary of State website (pdf), except that I placed Wayne County in IA-02 where it belongs, rather than in IA-03. (UPDATE: That error has been corrected on the official site.) In some counties, the numbers are barely changed from last month’s figures. Other county auditors have taken many more people off the active voter rolls.  

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A closer look at the Iowa House vote for traffic camera ban

After several hours of delay due to a suspicious powder mailed to State Representative Ako Abdul-Samad, the Iowa House passed a bill last night to ban local governments from using “automated traffic law enforcement systems.” The 58 to 40 vote didn’t follow the usual party lines in the chamber. The bill wouldn’t have passed without some support from House Democrats.

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Maryland and Wisconsin GOP primary discussion thread

Former Senator Rick Santorum has indicated that he’ll stay in the presidential race at least until the Pennsylvania primary later this month, but tonight could be the de facto end of his candidacy. Early returns from Maryland show Mitt Romney above 50 percent of the vote and Santorum below 30 percent. Wisconsin should be a closer contest, but recent opinion polls indicate that Romney is the likely winner.

President Barack Obama targeted Romney by name in a speech to Associated Press writers and editors today. Click here for the full transcript.

I’ll update this post later with more results from Maryland and Wisconsin. Any comments about the presidential campaign are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: Santorum conceded early, speaking on television less than a half-hour after Wisconsin polls closed. I’m surprised, because unofficial results indicate that Romney didn’t win by much there: 42 percent for the front-runner, 38 percent for Santorum, 12 percent for Ron Paul, and 6 percent for Newt Gingrich. Maryland was a blowout, as expected: 49 percent for Romney, 29 percent for Santorum, 11 percent for Gingrich, 10 percent for Paul. Romney received 70 percent of the vote among roughly 4,000 Republicans who voted in Washington, DC. Santorum wasn’t on the ballot there. Paul received 12 percent and Gingrich 11 percent.

Excerpts from last night’s speeches by Santorum and Romney are after the jump.  

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