Governor Chet Culver took the unusual step of publishing a guest editorial in the Sunday Des Moines Register about alleged wrongdoing at the Agriprocessors meat-packing plant in Postville:

The sad events surrounding the [May 12] federal Postville raid, resulting in multiple federal criminal-law convictions of line workers and low-level supervisors – and, notably, not yet of the company’s owners – are strong evidence of a company that has chosen to take advantage of a failed federal immigration system.

[…]

Before the federal raid, Agriprocessors already had a history of sanctions by Iowa’s state regulatory agencies for water pollution, as well as health and safety law violations. Alarming information about working conditions at the Postville plant – including allegations ranging from the use of child labor in prohibited jobs to sexual and physical abuse by supervisors; from the nonpayment of regular and overtime wages to the denial of immediate medical attention for workplace injuries – brought to national attention by the raid forces me to believe that, in contrast to our state’s overall economic-development strategy, this company’s owners have deliberately chosen to take the low road in its business practices.

He said he had directed members of his cabinet to make sure Iowa law is being enforced with Agriprocessors. Furthermore, open positions at Agriprocessors may not be included on state job-listing services “due to the unsafe working conditions at the Postville facility.” In addition, he called on Attorney General Tom Miller “promptly to prosecute all alleged criminal and civil-law violations that are backed by sufficient evidence.”

On Friday the Iowa Division of Labor Services released a statement citing 31 new and repeated safety violations at Agriprocessors’ plant in Postville.

If any Bleeding Heartland readers keep kosher, you may be interested in this piece by Lynda Waddington for Iowa Independent. She describes a “kosher social seal” program, which signifies that food not only meets Jewish ritual requirements but has also been produced in a humane and socially responsible manner.

Meanwhile, John Carlson reports in his latest Des Moines Register column that a local radio personally has written lyrics called “Palau to Postville – a Topical/Tropical Tale.” They are meant to be sung to the tune of the Gilligan’s Island theme. He was inspired by “reports last week that an employment recruiter has been trying to entice people in the Pacific island of Palau to come to work for the [Agriprocessors] plant.”

UPDATE: A spokesman for Agriprocessors says the company is drafting “a forceful response to the governor’s guilty verdict even before trial.”

The same article goes on to say:

Several business and political experts said Culver’s criticism was unusual, but they applauded it.

“I think it’s out of the ordinary. But then again, I think Agriprocessors is a little out of the ordinary, too,” said Mike Ralston, president of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry.

Ralston’s group includes most large Iowa employers, but not Agriprocessors. He said he wouldn’t want Culver to make a habit of publicly criticizing specific businesses. However, he said Agriprocessors’ notoriety has damaged the state’s reputation, making it fair game for the governor’s ire.

Holy cow, is this ad cynical:

I can’t see John McCain gaining a lot of traction with this approach. Joe Biden is not an in-your-face pick for Clinton supporters. Hillary herself said she would consider Biden for any position. This ad is called “Passed Over,” but it’s not as if Obama passed Hillary over for a running mate who was less qualified than she is.

Competitors criticize each other in primaries–big deal. This is nothing worse than what Mitt Romney said about McCain during the Republican competition. This Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton will strongly endorse Barack Obama in front of a packed house in Denver.

What is McCain offering women on any of the issues Hillary championed during the primaries? Zero. And when he picks a down-the-line conservative as his running mate, that will become even more clear.

UPDATE: From CNN:

Clinton’s team immediately dubbed the ad misleading. “Hillary Clinton’s support of Barack Obama is pretty clear,” said Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand. “She has said repeatedly that Barack Obama and she share a commitment to changing the direction of the country, getting us out of Iraq, and expanding access to health care. John McCain doesn’t. It’s interesting how those remarks didn’t make it into his ad.”

Icebergslim brings you pictures and speeches from today’s rally in Springfield.

Hope Reborn brings you lots of clips from journalists and bloggers reacting to Barack Obama’s selection of his running mate: “Glowing Reviews of Vice President Joe Biden: GOP ‘disappointed silence’”

Markos is not happy that Obama “filled a gap, rather than reinforced.”

Paul Rosenberg is disappointed for a different reason, as he explains in “Biden and the Primacy of the Inside Game.”

James L. of Swing State Project looks at what might happen to Biden’s senate seat from Delaware (Biden is up for reelection this year.)

dcprof says “Biden crimps McCain’s VP choice,” and I completely agree.

dday analyzes Ron Fournier’s hit piece for the Associated Press and makes the case that Fournier should recuse himself from covering the presidential campaign or be fired. He makes a strong case, since more and more newspapers rely on wire services like the AP for political coverage, and Fournier considered taking a job with John McCain’s campaign last year.

Steve Benen gives you the gory details on how bad Fournier’s piece is.

Firedoglake also put up an action item on calling for Fournier’s dismissal.

John Deeth’s take on Biden is here. You can find some of Iowa Independent’s greatest hits on the Biden family here.

MoveOn.org is giving away Obama-Biden stickers:

You can get one Obama/Biden sticker for free. For a $3+ donation, we’ll send you 5 stickers. For a $20+ donation, we’ll send 50 stickers. Stickers may take 4-6 weeks to arrive.

If you donate at least $30 to the Obama campaign, you’ll get an official Obama-Biden t-shirt with the campaign logo.

How do you feel about the ticket?

CNN noticed that Secret Service arrived at Joe Biden’s home in Delaware last night, which makes it almost official.

The case for Joe Biden as Barack Obama’s running mate is simple: he’s got a lot of experience at the federal level, particularly in foreign policy. That will reassure voters who may be concerned about Obama’s resume and blunt a major line of attack from John McCain (whose ads have been questioning whether Obama is “ready to lead”).  

But plenty of people in Washington have served in Congress for 20 or 30 years. What makes Biden better than most of them as a running mate? Media scripts about the “gaffe machine” notwithstanding, I submit that Biden’s campaigning ability will be a huge asset to Obama.

I know the stories about Biden putting his foot in his mouth, and I am old enough to remember the Clarence Thomas hearings, when Biden talked too much and didn’t put Thomas on the spot enough.

But he is a much better campaigner than people give him credit for.

Of all the presidential candidates, Biden got the best word of mouth from Iowans who attended his events last year. I don’t think I ever talked to anyone who went to hear him and walked away unimpressed. I wrote about this last summer and again right before the Iowa caucuses.

If you don’t believe me, read accounts by other people who listened to Biden take questions for an hour or more from voters, sometimes just about Iraq and foreign policy but more often about any topic Iowans felt like bringing up.

Biden is not going to need a crash course in federal policy to prepare for the vice-presidential debate, because he knows this stuff inside-out. And despite his reputation for long-windedness, he is able to answer questions in 30 to 60 seconds. In the Democratic candidates’ debates last year, Biden did extremely well despite consistently getting 30 percent to 50 percent less time to speak than the front-runners. He often had the most memorable one-liners from those debates too.

Speaking about the news media’s blackout of long-shot Democratic contenders, Elizabeth Edwards wrote in this op-ed for the New York Times:

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.

Biden’s speaking style is more aggressive than Obama’s, which will help him be the attack dog Obama needs.

I also agree with Jonathan Singer’s point that Biden’s relative lack of wealth will reinforce the message that the Democratic candidates can relate to ordinary Americans on bread-and-butter economic issues.

Finally, Steve Clemons is absolutely right: Americans are going to love Jill Biden.

Biden wasn’t my number one choice for Obama’s vice president, but he is going to bring a lot to the table.

On Monday I received this release from Becky Greenwald’s campaign:

Waukee, IA – Tom Latham this week continues to use taxpayer dollars to campaign using official Congressional events and mail pieces, instead of his campaign paying for his campaigning.

“Tom Latham has over $800,000 in his campaign account, yet he continues to hold events and send mail pieces paid for by the taxpayers,” said Greenwald Communications Director Erin Seidler. “With just two and a half months to Election Day, taxpayers are paying for Latham to campaign back in the district.”

This week, Tom Latham is holding official Congressional events in New Hampton, Cresco, Mason City, Forest City, Decorah and Waukon. He also sent out a four-page official Congressional mail piece earlier this month. The mail piece is attached to the release.

“Unfortunately, Tom Latham has chosen to campaign using tax dollars over the August recess, and he still refuses to debate with Becky Greenwald,” Seidler continued. “These same taxpayers that are paying for his events are voters, and they deserve to hear from both candidates on the issues.”

The Greenwald Campaign challenged Tom Latham to five debates, including four debates over the August recess. The Latham campaign declined the August recess debates. The Iowa Farmers Union then offered the Latham campaign a debate opportunity at their convention, an event Latham is attending. He also declined this offer.

Latham will be at the Iowa Farmers Union conference in Marshalltown tomorrow (Saturday). Maybe someone there will ask him to explain why he wouldn’t agree to a debate in that setting.

Speaking of which, drop me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) if you would be willing to show up in a chicken suit outside a Latham event in the coming weeks. Someone I know has a suit that activists can borrow.

I downloaded the Latham direct-mail piece alluded to above. It’s a clear abuse of the franking privilege, with the look and feel of campaign literature. I will put up the photos and transcribe the text in a future post. Taxpayers should not foot the bill for these glossy mailers.

Senator Chuck Grassley has four town-hall meetings schedule for this Monday:

   * Monday August 25, 9:15-10:15 AM: Buchanan County Courthouse Assembly Room – 210 5th Avenue NE, Independence 50644

   * Monday August 25, 11:15-12:15 AM: Hudson Public Library – 401 5th Street, Hudson 50643

   * Monday August 25, 2-3 PM: New Hampton Public Library Meeting Room – 20 West Spring Street, New Hampton 50659

   * Monday August 25, 4-5 PM: Cresco City Hall Council Chambers – 227 North Elm Street, Cresco 52136

The Sierra Club is encouraging constituents to attend these meetings and send Grassley the message that “drilling won’t lower prices at the pump and it’s time we invest in green solutions that will solve the energy crisis.”

Click here to let the Sierra Club know you plan to attend.

Click the same link to find facts, figures and talking points on why increased offshore oil drilling only benefits oil companies and why Americans need clean energy solutions. The same page contains a word document you can download and print out to take to the town-hall meeting.

If you go, please put up a diary afterwards, like IowaVoter did after he attended a Grassley town-hall meeting in June.

Most people seem to think Obama’s short list is Biden, Bayh and Kaine, but there’s a lot of late buzz about him surprising us all, perhaps with Hillary.

What do you think? I don’t think he will choose Hillary, because his people stupidly made a big point of saying earlier this summer that he didn’t want her on the ticket. If he chooses her now, it looks like he is acknowledging he can’t win without her, and I don’t think he wants to show weakness.

She would be a good choice, though. The right-wing hate machine has been doing a good job of rallying Republicans around McCain. The argument that choosing Hillary would galvanize conservatives against Obama no longer holds water.

UPDATE: Politico says Hillary was never vetted and Congressman Chet Edwards of Texas is on Obama’s short list. Please don’t let Obama be dumb enough to pick him. If he wants a conservative Democrat, it should at least be someone who puts a state in play. Also, Chet Edwards is not seasoned as a communicator on the national stage.

SECOND UPDATE: A friend of a friend of a source of Matt Stoller says Biden’s family is making plans to be in Springfield this Saturday:

http://www.openleft.com/showDi…

THIRD UPDATE: Marc Ambinder picks up on a chartered flight from Chicago’s Midway airport to New Castle, Delaware…possibly going to pick up Biden’s family?

http://marcambinder.theatlanti…

Earlier this year, Mrs. panstreppon wrote several stories on the conservative American Future Fund. You can find them here, here, and here.

This week Jason Hancock wrote a good piece for Iowa Independent about this advocacy group, which is running ads in close Congressional races across the country. This part caught my eye:

Public records show the AFF also has connections to Iowa businessman Bruce Rastetter, who is widely believed to be considering a run for governor in 2010. Rastetter is a regular donor to the Republican Party and founder of Hawkeye Renewables, the fourth largest ethanol producer in the nation. Eric Peterson, business manager at Summit Farms, another of Rastetter’s companies, is listed on documents filed with the Iowa Secretary of State’s office as president, secretary and director of Iowa Future Fund, a conservative nonprofit that essentially morphed into American Future Fund.

The address listed on an AFF ad buy in Minnesota is a post office box used by Nick Ryan, a Des Moines lobbyist who works primarily for Rastetter’s companies and who served as campaign manager for 2006 Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle. In February, Ryan was acting as spokesman for Hawkeye Renewables when 29,000 gallons of ethanol was accidentally spilled at the company’s Iowa Falls plant.

Within the past year, Rastetter donated $1 million to the Iowa State Fair and $1.75 million to the Iowa State University Agricultural Entrepreneurship Program. That will build up a lot of good will across this state.

This morning, Politico reported that John McCain was unable to say exactly how many houses he and his wife own. Click the link to listen to the audio.

Within hours, Barack Obama’s campaign released this ad to run on cable television:

Also the same day, Obama and a bunch of Democratic surrogates pounded on this gaffe, linking it to McCain’s recent statement that he considers people making less than $5 million annually to be “middle class.” (In reality, an annual family income of $350,000 puts an American in the top 1 percent.)

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign tried to change the subject to the fact that he was a POW in Vietnam, the fact that Obama’s house is pretty big, and Obama’s relationship with Chicago businessman Tony Rezko.

A new conservative 501(c)4 organization has produced a hit piece on Obama to run on television in Ohio and Michigan. Ed Failor Jr., former McCain aide in Iowa and executive vice president of Iowans for Tax Relief, is a leading figure in this new group.

The good news for McCain today was that the Federal Election Commission unanimously decided to let McCain cheat by getting out of accepting public financing for the primaries. McCain used the fact that he’d qualified for public financing to secure loans to his campaign in 2007. He also used his public financing certificate to qualify for the Ohio ballot without collecting signatures. Then, once he won the nomination, he weaseled out of his promise. Adam B has more background and analysis of this FEC ruling.

But other than that, I have to agree with JedReport: It was a really bad day to be John McCain.

UPDATE: Seriously, how many houses does the McCain family own? Politico says eight properties, but ProgressiveAccountability.org says at least ten.

SECOND UPDATE: Karl Rove comes up with creative but not convincing spin: making fun of McCain’s housing gaffe is an attack on Cindy McCain, because the homes were bought with her money. So apparently Obama is now attacking McCain’s wife!

The members of the Rebuild And Grow Board of Directors submitted a public petition to the Cedar Rapids City Council this week requesting an intensive one-year plan for dealing with flood recovery and reconstruction in the city.

Rebuild And Grow is an affiliate of Beacon of Hope/New Orleans, and its leaders consulted with disaster recovery groups in New Orleans in forming the recommendations.

The full text of Rebuild And Grow’s petition to the Cedar Rapids City Council is after the jump. The council is expected to respond in writing within a week.

If you would like to send comments or support for this citizen petition to the mayor and council members, click here.

Rebuild and Grow has also written “a ten page report on what we learned during our intensive training and internship with Neighborhood Self-Help Disaster Recovery Groups in New Orleans.” To request a copy of that report, send an e-mail to floodsurvivor AT aol.com.

                                                   

I don’t see much evidence that Barack Obama has a problem with women voters. He leads among women by more than Al Gore or John Kerry did at the same time during their own presidential campaigns. The most recent Iowa poll shows Obama leading by six overall but by 12 among Iowa women.

(UPDATE: A new national poll commissioned by EMILY’s list shows Obama leading among women by 12. He leads among women of all age groups, but his narrowest margin is among baby boomer women. Like Digby said, Don’t put baby boomer in the corner.)

Among purveyors of conventional wisdom, however, there is still a perception that Obama has work to do among women voters, and particularly the women who preferred Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

The Obama campaign has been scheduling women’s outreach events to address this issue. Today Governor Kathleen Sebelius is campaigning around central Iowa, and one of her appearances is a lunch in Des Moines specifically geared toward women.

Last Friday I attended a different women’s event featuring Dana Singiser. She served as Director of Women’s Outreach for Clinton’s presidential campaign before joining the Obama campaign as Senior Adviser for the Women’s Vote.

Singiser wrote the Obama campaign memo on John McCain’s “woman problem,” released earlier this week.

Join me after the jump for more.

According to the Des Moines Register,

An investment group that included the late Ed Boesen has informed Des Moines school officials that it is pulling out of a deal to develop the former Rice Elementary School site.

Rice Development Partners told school officials that it intends to terminate an agreement to purchase the vacant school site at 3001 Beaver Ave. for $650,000.

The article quotes the attorney for the Des Moines school district as saying, “we have a valid and enforceable contract,” but I don’t see how they will be able to squeeze money out of this investment group. A long line of creditors are suing Ed Boesen’s estate.

It’s just as well to go back to the drawing board on Rice field. Perhaps it’s better to leave Beaverdale residents to enjoy this green space. If it is developed eventually, let’s hope there are no major conflicts of interest linking policy-makers to the developers selected for the site.

If you’ve never seen Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius in person, you’ve got plenty of chances tomorrow. She’ll be campaigning for Barack Obama and Becky Greenwald, candidate for Congress in Iowa’s fourth district.

The one time I heard Sebelius speak in person, I was very impressed. Come out to hear a woman who is on Obama’s short list for vice-president and may well run for president herself someday.

All events take place on Thursday, August 21.

A women’s brown-bag lunch event will be held at the Scottish Rite Consistory, 519 Park Street in downtown Des Moines. Doors open at 12:30. Becky Greenwald will speak around 12:45. Governor Sebelius will speak at 1:00. Bring your own lunch and enjoy.

Greenwald and Sebelius will hold a community gathering at 2:45 at Funaro’s Deli and Bakery, 201 N Buxton Street in Indianola. (Side note: Take home some of that wonderful Funaro bread!)

At 4:00, Sebelius and Greenwald will hold a meet and greet with voters at the Becky Greenwald Campaign Headquaters and Obama Campaign for Change Office, 144 E Laurel Street in Waukee.

Finally, Sebelius will kick-off a volunteer phone bank at 5:30 at the Obama Iowa Campaign for Change office, 1408 Locust Street in Des Moines.

If you attend any of these events, post a comment or a diary afterwards to let us know how it went.

If you regularly buy food directly from farmers, you have probably noticed that this year’s severe weather disrupted the growing season in Iowa. To make matters worse, many sustainable farmers (such as fruit and vegetable growers) do not qualify for federal crop insurance. Yet a huge amount of time and money is involved in replanting or replacing lost crops.

I enclose an e-mail describing an assistance effort geared toward family, sustainable and market farmers in Iowa. These grants may seem very small to you, but even $500 can make a difference to a cash-strapped small farmer.

The links did not come through when I copied and pasted, but you click here to donate to the project. If you are a farmer in need of assistance, click the same link to find application guidelines and forms.

The Iowa Farm Disaster Relief Coalition — fourteen Iowa farm, faith and rural organizations including the Center for Rural Affairs is collecting donations and making emergency funds available for Iowa’s family, sustainable and market farmers who suffered losses due to storms, rain and flooding in Iowa earlier this year.

Applications and guidelines are available on the coalition’s website. Donations may be made to the fund on the website as well.

Farmers may apply for up to $500 in relief to help offset household expenses, which in turn will free up finances for replanting, clean up, repair, etc., on the farm. It is our hope that assisting as many qualifying farmers as possible with grants up to $500 to cover expenses will help ease some of the pain of the tough times created by these disasters.

Again, please find applications instructions and grant guidelines on the coalition’s website.

Applications will be reviewed as quickly as possible by a committee of representatives of the state’s membership based sustainable agriculture groups. The deadline for the first round of applications is Sept. 30, 2008. Additional rounds of grants will be made available as funding allows.

For more information, contact John Crabtree at 402-687-2103 extension 1010, or by email at johnc@cfra.org.

Whether or not you can apply or contribute, please help us get the word out by letting others who may be interested know about the project.

—

Farm Aid is supporting the disaster-relief efforts of the coalition, which includes Buy Fresh Buy Local Iowa, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Iowa Farmers Union, Iowa Network for Community Agriculture, Iowa Organic Association, National Catholic Rural Life Conference, Practical Farmers of Iowa, Women Food and Agriculture Network, Edible Iowa River Valley, Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development, National Farmers Organization, Churches’ Center for the Land and People, Atlantic farmer and advocate Denise O’Brien and the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska which is serving as the project’s fiscal sponsor.

Thanks to all the participating organizations and to Denise O’Brien, one of the best advocates for sustainable agriculture that Iowa has ever known.

The Democratic National Committee is putting together a Democratic Change Commission to review possible changes to the presidential nominating process. According to the Associated Press, DNC leaders want to reduce the number of superdelegates and “regain control of the primary calendar”:

A goal of the new commission would be to establish a calendar in which only a handful of states would be allowed to hold nominating contests before March.

This diary at MyDD contains the full text of the press release. Here is an excerpt:

Today the Obama Campaign and the Democratic National Committee announced a proposal to establish a special commission to recommend changes to the Democratic Party’s rules for delegate selection and presidential primary timing for future presidential cycles. The proposal will be presented to the Convention Rules Committee on Saturday in Denver.

The ‘Democratic Change Commission’ will address three issues 1) changes to the opening of the window and pre-window, 2) reducing the number of superdelegates and 3) changes to the caucus system. The goal of the commission will be to ensure that no primary or caucus is held prior to the first Tuesday in March of 2012, with the exception of the approved pre-window states, whose contests would be held during February 2012.

I’m all for reducing the number of superdelegates and strictly limiting the number of states that can hold primaries or caucuses before March.

But if we are going to increase the relative importance of pledged delegates, we need to be aware that the pledged delegate count does not necessarily reflect the will of the people.

Longtime readers know that I am not a big fan of the caucus system even in Iowa, where voters and party officials have a lot of experience with it. I don’t think any of the alleged benefits of caucuses outweigh the barriers to participation that caucuses create.

Furthermore, no state but Iowa can claim any genuine party-building benefit from caucuses, because other states didn’t have multiple campaigns organizing at the precinct level for months.

Many states switched from primaries to caucuses in order to save money, figuring the nomination wouldn’t depend on that state’s vote anyway. As a result, poorly-trained precinct chairs presided over chaos in many parts of Nevada.

Even where caucuses ran relatively smoothly, turnout was unnecessarily limited, and results were skewed.

Consider Minnesota. Probably Obama would have won a primary there, but would he have won it by a 2-1 margin, as he did the caucus delegate count? Seems unlikely.

In Colorado, Nebraska, and several other states, Obama emerged with three or four times as many delegates as Hillary Clinton. Again, he probably would have won a primary in those states, but not by that kind of margin.

Even worse, in Nevada and Texas, Obama emerged with more pledged delegates even though more voters turned out to support Hillary. 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.

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). That’s partly because caucuses attract lower turnout and partly because smaller states have a disproportionate number of delegates in the Democratic Party’s current nominating system.

I will be interested to see what this commission recommends with respect to caucuses. My preference would be to ban caucuses for purposes of presidential candidate selection, but I’m sure that a commission created with the participation of the Obama campaign would never agree to that reform. My guess is that they will propose some nominal changes to caucuses but will do nothing to discourage states from holding caucuses instead of primaries.

Before anyone gets upset in the comments, please note that by criticizing the caucus system, I do not intend to excuse the strategic failure of the Clinton campaign to have a game plan for the caucus states.

But if we are going to reduce the number of superdelegates, or require superdelegates to get behind the pledged delegate leader in their states or districts, then we better have a more equitable system for allocating the pledged delegates.

It was wrong for Obama to net as many pledged delegates from a low-turnout caucus state as Hillary netted in the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries. She exceeded Obama’s popular vote count by more than 200,000 in each of those states.

The Trust for America’s Health has released a comprehensive analysis of public health indicators in all 50 states.

You can view all the statistics for Iowa here. As you might expect, it’s a mixed bag. We do pretty well in terms of proportion of people having health insurance (40th in percentage of uninsured adults, 45th in percentage of uninsured children). We also rank 43rd in infant mortality.

On the other hand, we rank 19th in obesity, 15th in terms of shortage of dental care, and 15th in terms of the percentage of high school students who currently smoke.

Click over to find many more facts and figures.

His problem attracting women voters, that is.

The memo is after the jump. Its author, Dana Singiser, did several women’s outreach events for the Obama campaign in Iowa last week. I attended one of those and will write it up when I have the chance. She was very impressive.

Singiser thoroughly documents the gender gap revealed by recent opinion polls on the presidential race. Her memo also gives several reasons why John McCain’s stand on the issues would not appeal to women voters.

The just-released University of Iowa Hawkeye poll showed Barack Obama leading McCain by five or six points overall (depending on which voter screen you use) but by 12 points among Iowa women voters.

cross-posted at La Vida Locavore

The Iowa legislature and state agencies have notoriously failed to do anything to address the pollution problems stemming from confined-animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

But the Environmental Protection Commission took one small step in the right direction:

The state Environmental Protection Commission today rejected previously approved permits for two large hog confinements in Dallas County.

The surprise move came after a two-hour meeting in Urbandale at which commissioners said rules drawn up to dictate approval of large-scale confinement permits leave out important environmental considerations and neighbors’ quality-of-life concerns.

“There are battle lines being drawn on this, and it creates a political situation that the Legislature cannot ignore,” commission chairman Henry Marquard said.

Only a handful of permits have been denied in Iowa, but rarely has one been turned down after it met approval from the Department of Natural Resources and passed a complicated scoring system adopted by counties, including Dallas.

The nine-member commission voted to block these permits on a strong 6-2 vote. I wouldn’t be surprised if the matter ends up in court, however.

Noneed4thneed wrote about the controversy over the new Dallas County CAFOs in late July:

The proposed hog confinements would have a total of 7,440 hogs in rural Dallas County, which is the fastest growing county in the state. These confinements will produce as much waste as a town of 30,000 people and it will go untreated.

Earlier this month, Dallas County Supervisors voted against allowing these proposed hog confinements, but in reality there isn’t much the local people can do about the hog confinements that will be owned by the out of state company, Cargill.

We need federal legislation to make CAFOs pay for the harm they cause, because our state legislature has shown itself to be unwilling to act to protect air and water quality in Iowa.

But in the absence of federal action, a state law giving counties “local control” (agricultural zoning rights) would at least offer some protection. Some county supervisors would rubber-stamp every proposed CAFO, but others would follow the lead of the Dallas County supervisors.

For all I know, Cargill will sue to reinstate their permits to open these hog confinements. But however this story ends, it’s good to see the majority of the Environmental Protection Commission’s members doing something to protect the environment.

UPDATE: I learned from the online newsletter of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement that the Iowa Department of Natural Resources recently denied a permit for a different proposed CAFO.

Because of the efforts of CCI members and other local residents, the DNR recently denied a 4,900-head hog factory proposed for southern Appanoose County. The permit application did not meet legal requirements, nor did their master matrix pass muster. Although the applicant for this proposed confinement is a local resident, the 4,900 hogs would have been owned by Cargill. Cargill, one of the largest privately-held corporations in the world, has been behind a number of proposed factory farms around the state, including two proposed 7,440-head hog factories in northwest Dallas County.

John Wenck, an outreach coordinator for the Department of Natural Resources, had a good guest opinion column in Monday’s Des Moines Register about why building a new road through the Des Moines River Greenbelt is a bad idea.

This road project used to be called the “MLK extension,” because it would extend Martin Luther King Drive north through the river greenbelt. A group of environmental advocates and interested citizens helped defeat that proposal years ago.

Now it has been revived as the “Northwest 26th Street extension,” which is the Ankeny street that would be extended south through the greenbelt to connect with MLK on the Des Moines side.

A new name does nothing to lessen the impact of this road. A Sierra Club “sprawl report” from the fall of 2000 had this to say:

Tearing down urban highways has brought new life to neighborhoods long hemmed-in by the roads. Unfortunately, Des Moines seems to be heading in the opposite direction with the proposed extension of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway. This project will put a highway in what is now an urban green space and flood-control zone.

The Des Moines River Valley is a unique urban green space that provides a variety of habitats for wildlife, plants and people. It is an important wintering ground for the bald eagle and ideal habitat for many species of migratory birds. This area also serves as a buffer between existing neighborhoods and the current interstate. Two bicycle trails run along the river and improve the transportation choices for Des Moines residents.

Building a highway through this area will clearly harm its value to wildlife, reduce the value of the land as a floodplain and make areas downstream more prone to flooding. The proposed extension will also encourage sprawl outside the city and add to the traffic and air pollution problems of the region. Middle- and low-income neighborhoods near the proposed route will suffer from more noise and air pollution.

Given that new highways draw more drivers onto the road, the parkway extension would do little to ease traffic. Rather than building a major new highway and destroying this open space, a smarter plan would enhance this urban green space and use public transportation to ease the area’s traffic congestion.

The last paragraph is crucial: this road project would do little to ease traffic. I am old enough to remember the debate over extending 100th St. in Clive over the Clive Greenbelt during the 1980s. That was supposed to solve a lot of traffic problems in the western suburbs, but it didn’t do the job. Instead, there has been more sprawling development and more traffic in the area.

The Des Moines River Greenbelt contains outstanding habitat for birds that are very sensitive to noise that would accompany a major road. We don’t have an abundance of riparian forests in central Iowa anymore and should preserve the ones that remain.

If you care about wildlife habitat and/or sound transportation policy, I encourage you to get involved with one or more of the organizations that are fighting the NW 26th St extension. They include the Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club, 1000 Friends of Iowa, and Iowa Rivers Revival.

For her incredible performance during the Olympics, which culminated in a gold medal for balance beam.

I have friends whose kids take gymnastics at Chow’s in West Des Moines, and apparently Shawn is so kind and gracious with the kids who look up to her there. She did us all proud.

She was fantastic on the days she earned silver medals in the team exercises, all-around competition and floor exercises. I suspect she would have taken the gold in the floor exercises if she hadn’t been scheduled to perform first in the final. She had a flawless routine, but the judges often leave themselves room to go higher later when they are scoring the first competitor (at least that’s what some of the commentators were saying during other individual competitions). I wouldn’t have blamed her for being very angry, but she was smiling and sportsmanlike in her comments to the media after the competition.

Nastia Liukin, the all-around gold medalist, was amazing as well, even though she may have been robbed of the gold in uneven bars. The Chinese gymnast who won gold in that event through a controversial tiebreaking procedure was reported by the official Chinese agency Xinhua to be 13 years old last year. Gymnasts are required to be at least 16 years old to compete in the Olympics.

There needs to be an investigation of some of the scoring in the gymnastics competitions. Alicia Sacramone (who had to go first in the final for the individual vault competition) ended up finishing fourth by hundredths of a point, even though she landed on her feet, and the Chinese gymnast who won bronze fell to her knees on one landing.

Use this thread for any chatter related to the Olympics. Des Moines native and Roosevelt High School graduate Lolo Jones looked dominating in her semifinal in the hurdles.

UDPATE: Lolo Jones was leading the 100-meter hurdles race until she hit the second to last hurdle. She finished out of the medals, which must have been crushing after she posted a personal best time in the semifinal. Elite-level sports can be a heartbreaking business.