Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa journalist. He is the co-founder of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation and a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, where this article first appeared on The Iowa Mercury newsletter. His family operated the Carroll Times Herald for 93 years in Carroll, Iowa where Burns resides.

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld and his orbiting panelists relentlessly mocked the weight of a rural middle- and high school band teacher and Democratic candidate for the Iowa legislature in a viral three-minute national broadcast last week.

The barbs aimed at Dunlap City Council member Benjamin Schauer were incessant and cruel, and the piece has generated comments in a range of online forums, including The Daily Caller.

Brian McLain is a past chair of the Iowa Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus and is now a provisional State Central Committee member for that caucus.

On June 27, 98 leaders of the Iowa Democratic Party released the following statement denouncing the Iowa Utilities Board’s decision to approve the use of eminent domain for Summit Carbon Solutions’ carbon pipeline:

“We, the undersigned leaders of the Iowa Democratic Party, are extremely disappointed with the Iowa Utilities Board’s recent approval of the use of eminent domain to acquire landowners’ property for construction of the Summit carbon capture pipeline. This short-term gain for big agribusiness only hurts the long-term sustainability of rural Iowa and the state of Iowa as a whole.