Category Archives: Weekly Updates

Aaron Rodgers and the Left’s COVID problem

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In a sane world, there wouldn’t be any political message. COVID should never have been politicized. Partisans on both sides of the aisle did it, continue to do it — and it’s helping Republicans! Whether one is “woke” on COVID or anything else, do Democrats really think they can win elections by pushing wokeness? A poll this summer found that only a third of American voters consider themselves woke.

The problem is, wokeness is perceived as another form of elitism, and elitism is the Democratic Party’s biggest problem. Democrats have yet to recover from Hillary Clinton calling half of Donald Trump’s supporters “deplorables” in 2016. The reek of that elitist remark persists. Continue Reading →

We’re now a call-in program!

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This week, we discuss the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. Agreements have been reached on coal, deforestation, and methane. But do they go far enough? What enforcement mechanisms will be put in place? How much of what’s being touted as accomplishments is merely green-washing?

My callers and I tackle these and related questions on this week’s program. Callers range from Jerry Schnoor, a UI professor who has attended all of the previous climate summits, to the notorious “Frank from Des Moines,” a conservative whose perspectives I enjoy but often disagree with. (Spoiler alert: We cue Frank’s entrance into the conversation with Darth Vader’s theme music.) Continue Reading →

How an industry took over a political party that took over the US

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Rosenwald talks about how, early on in his career, Limbaugh was a failure, being fired from one radio stint after another. Limbaugh wasn’t very political. He didn’t bother to vote until his 30s. It will probably surprise you that Rosenwald says, “Limbaugh was so entertaining that he would have been equally successful had he been a liberal.”

Ouch. Opportunity squandered … perhaps. Entertainment (and the advertising revenue it brought in) was Limbaugh’s bottom line. He had no political agenda at first, and often used, even abused, parody.

Once, by way of taking a shot at the Great Peace March (my first foray into social change work!), Limbaugh told his audience that if you play Una Paloma Blanca backwards you’ll hear the voice of the devil. Limbaugh knew he was making it up. Much of his audience believed it. Continue Reading →

Navigator Pipeline Hearings Scheduled

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Two carbon dioxide pipelines are now formally proposed to tear through approximately 1,600 miles of Iowa farmland. That’s over four times the length of the Dakota Access Pipeline’s footprint across Iowa!

With Iowa landowners and other concerned residents still trying to process information from thirty Summit Pipeline public hearings that just wrapped up, the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) wasted no time announcing a new set of hearings for the Navigator Pipeline.

We can’t sit back. We’ve gotta respond. These big corporations and their bought-and-paid for allies in state government hope to wear us down. Continue Reading →

Ditch Columbus, bring on Cabrini

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Ignoble though he be, Columbus is generally loved by Italian-Americans simply because he’s Italian, even though the establishment of Columbus Day had nothing to do with elevating Italian heritage. When the holiday was first recognized in 1892, President Benjamin Harrison presented it, essentially, as a day to commemorate and further sanitize America’s colonial conquest.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Italian immigrants were maligned and discriminated against as badly as the Irish. Some were killed, most horrifically when 11 Sicilian immigrants were lynched in New Orleans after the city’s police commissioner was murdered and the Italian community blamed — even though the 11 men had been found not guilty before the lynching.

Just as Saint Patrick’s Day gives Irish Americans a focal point to celebrate our heritage (and gives the rest of the country an excuse to get stupid drunk), Columbus Day serves that purpose for Italian Americans.

Columbus Day absolutely needs to go. Still, Italian Americans deserve their day of recognition. Continue Reading →

Gerrymandering alert: It could happen in Iowa!

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The Iowa Legislature will vote on a second map on October 28. If Republicans reject it, they’ll draft their own map, and Iowa will have gerrymandered congressional and state legislative districts for the first time in modern history.

Sad to say, given the hyper-partisan nature of today’s politics, I suspect that’s what will happen.

I hope I’m wrong, but Iowa Republicans like Bob Ray and Jim Leach are relics of the past. So is the Chuck Grassley of the 1980s and ‘90s, when Iowa’s senior senator would sometimes vote his conscience and work across the aisle.

The Iowa Legislature was certainly a partisan place when I served from 1993-2006, and it’s gotten worse. Way worse. During my years at the Statehouse, Republican representatives and senators worked with me to pass my proposals on urban sprawl, eminent domain, teen pregnancy, drunk driving, gambling, skateboarding, and bow hunting, to list a few. I can’t imagine that happening today. Continue Reading →

Congressman claims Jan 6 rioters were “peaceful patriots”

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How is it even possible that a member of Congress could make such a flagrantly false statement, with nothing to back it up, despite so much evidence to the contrary, and have that statement accepted as factual by a solid chunk of the electorate?

There is no simple answer. Without a doubt, the power of talk radio — along with its digital and visual counterparts — is a huge contributor to the persistent dissemination of lies and half-truths. For the life of me, I don’t understand why congressional Democrats don’t prioritize two reforms that would address this problem:

— Restore the Fairness Doctrine (thank President Reagan for eliminating that) to require balance on any station allowed to access the public airwaves.

— Break up media monopolies, which were enabled in part by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (thank President Clinton for signing that into law). Continue Reading →

Summit is lying about its CO2 pipeline

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Summit’s refusal to provide assurance verbally or in writing that the CO2 will not be used for fracking is a clear indicator of its plans. Statements such as: “As we stand here today,” “We can’t make the promise long term,” and “Commercial options might be available that are different than storing it underground,” are all rock-solid indicators that CO2 from Iowa ethanol plants will be used for fracking — or what the industry calls “enhanced oil recovery.” Continue Reading →

CO2 pipeline rupture hospitalized 49 people

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Zegart’s article in HuffPost describes how, “two dozen individuals were overcome within a few minutes, collapsing in their homes; at a fishing camp on the nearby Yazoo River; in their vehicles. Cars just shut off, since they need oxygen to burn fuel. Drivers scrambled out of their paralyzed vehicles, but were so disoriented that they just wandered around in the dark.”

Describing one of many rescue efforts, Zegart writes, “Inside the small red Cadillac sedan were three men: DeEmmeris and Andrew Burns, and Victor Lewis. DeEmmeris Burns lay across the backseat in the fetal position. The other two were slumped against the windows, white foam coming out of their noses and mouths, their clothes stained with urine and excrement. The firemen thought they were too late. Continue Reading →