House Dems retract call for diplomacy in Ukraine

On another light note, five of us witched the heck out of Sherman Hill’s seasonable bash, Halloween on the Hill, this week. If you’re a Des Moiniac and there’s any room in your schedule for fun, be sure to add this October 31 event to your calendar next year.

On to serious stuff, specifically the letter sent to President Biden by thirty House Democrats calling for diplomacy in Ukraine.

The letter was really quite moderate, yet its the authors retracted it almost immediately. I strongly disagree with that decision. Charles, on the other hand, thinks it was the right call. What ensues us is a spirited debate that Charles loses (in my opinion). Give it a listen starting at the four-minute mark and let me know what you think. If a majority of you agree with Charles, I’ll buy him lunch.

For me, what Ryan Grim wrote in The Intercept sums it up: “That the letter was met with fierce opposition is a measure of the space available for debate among congressional Democrats when it comes to support for the war and how it might be stopped before it turns nuclear: roughly zero.”
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Crossing the Divide

In 2017, Bold Iowa organized the Climate Justice Unity March. Thirty marchers walked 90 miles from Little Creek Camp in eastern Iowa to Des Moines, representing a mix of Native and non-Native allies united in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). 

Unfortunately, on the first day of the march, we were met with severe opposition from local residents, who had been fed lies by a pro-pipeline group associated with DAPL. (Click here to watch the hateful  video the group circulated.) Cars buzzed us along the highway. We were repeatedly flipped off. When we arrived at our campsite in Deep River, we were greeted by a confederate flag. During the night, we heard what we thought were gun shots. Continue Reading →