The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the constitutionality of the 2010 Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act, better known as health care reform. I am shocked not only by the decision, but by the 5-4 breakdown with Chief Justice John Roberts (not Justice Anthony Kennedy) being the swing vote in favor of upholding the law. Most commentators and the betting site Intrade thought the court would strike down at least the individual mandate to purchase health insurance, if not the whole law. To her credit, Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times consistently predicted that Roberts would vote to uphold the law.

Any comments related to health care reform are welcome in this thread. I will update this post frequently during the day as Iowa elected officials, candidates, and activist groups weigh in on the decision.  

President Barack Obama announced today that his administration will no longer deport some illegal immigrants who were brought to this country as children. Details on the policy are after the jump. Senator Tom Harkin welcomed the change, but Senator Chuck Grassley and Representative Steve King denounced what they called an “amnesty” policy. At this writing, other Iowa elected officials have not commented publicly on the issue.

Republican nominee Mitt Romney leads President Barack Obama in Iowa by 47 percent to 46 percent, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll of 500 “Likely Iowa Voters” conducted on June 11. Romney’s lead is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent. Click here for survey questions; full results and cross-tabs are available only to Rasmussen subscribers.

The Obama campaign’s relentless stream of television advertising in Iowa is another sign that this state could go either way in November. Follow me after the jump for the latest commercial, which went on the air yesterday. It’s the second Obama ad this month that casts a negative light on Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts.

A week doesn’t go by without some new ad related to the presidential campaign hitting the Iowa airwaves. The latest commercials from the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns are after the jump, along with highlights from Romney’s event in Council Bluffs on Friday.  

President Barack Obama’s campaign rolled out yet another new television commercial today in Iowa and other swing states. This negative spot (the eighth Obama campaign commercial to run in Iowa since early April) focuses on Mitt Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.

Mitt Romney’s second general election television commercial is on the air in Iowa and three other swing states. Its look and feel are similar to the Republican’s first tv ad here since the Iowa caucuses.

A new poll by NBC News and the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion finds that President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney each have 44 percent support among Iowa registered voters. Details from that poll are after the jump. It finds a significant gender gap.

Speaking of which, I’ve also enclosed below a new anti-Romney commercial that Planned Parenthood Action Fund rolled out on Wednesday. It will run on broadcast and cable networks through June 19 in the Des Moines market as well as West Palm Beach, Florida and northern Virginia. I saw it on a cable network Thursday evening.

Preliminary results from today’s Texas primary indicate that Mitt Romney now has enough delegates to win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. Only two months ago, it seemed plausible that Romney might not reach the 1,144 delegate threshold until later this summer.

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign launched two new television commercials this week in Iowa and six other swing states. That makes seven different television ads the president’s team has aired in Iowa during the past two months. The extent of the advertising here, along with yet another presidential visit to Iowa yesterday, signal that Obama campaign managers do not believe their boss has a comfortable lead on Mitt Romney in this state.

The latest Obama commercials focus on Medicare and policies to help veterans. Videos and transcripts are after the jump.

President Barack Obama visits Newton today to talk about clean energy initiatives. Later, he is headlining a large campaign rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines. News clips and comments from members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation are after the jump. I’ll update later with news from the rally.

Any comments about energy policy or the presidential race are welcome in this thread. Obama’s campaign rolled out two more television commercials in Iowa this week, which Bleeding Heartland will discuss tomorrow.

Iowa’s Republican National Committeewoman Kim Lehman announced today by e-mail that she will not seek another term on the RNC this summer.

Karl Rove’s super-PAC Crossroads GPS launched another television commercial slamming President Barack Obama yesterday, less than a week after its last ad hit tv screens in Iowa and nine other swing states. “Basketball” targets women who initially supported Obama for president but are discouraged about the economy. The video and transcript are after the jump.

Republican nominee in waiting Mitt Romney went up on the air yesterday with his first general election television commercial in Iowa. The video and transcript are after the jump.  

Crossroads GPS, the super-PAC headed by Republican strategist Karl Rove, is going up on the air today in Iowa and nine other states as part of a $25 million advertising campaign over the next month. The 60-second negative spot about President Barack Obama is after the jump, along with an annotated transcript.

Speaking in Des Moines this afternoon, Mitt Romney promised to lead the country “out of this debt and spending inferno” by reducing federal government spending from 24.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product to 20 percent of GDP within four years. Romney would address what he called a “prairie fire of debt” by moving some federal programs to the state level or the private sector, repealing “Obamacare,” reforming Medicare and Social Security, and reducing “redundancy and waste” in government programs.

I’ve posted the full prepared text of Romney’s remarks after the jump, along with a few comments.

The word “devastating” is overused in political commentary, but I can’t think of a better way to describe the television commercial President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign rolled out today. The fifth commercial the president’s team has run in Iowa since the beginning of April is in my opinion the most effective by far. (The previous ads claimed Republican Mitt Romney “stood with Big Oil,” accused Romney of shipping jobs overseas and maintaining a Swiss bank account, put a positive spin on Obama’s record, and highlighted the unpopular decision to bail out the auto industry.)

The new spot is two minutes long and features workers who lost their jobs after Bain Capital took over GST Steel in Kansas City. The video and transcript are after the jump. UPDATE: Added a new web video from the Romney campaign and two new anti-Obama commercials the American Future Fund is running on cable television in several swing states.

President Barack Obama talks about intervening to save the U.S. auto industry in his re-election campaign’s latest television commercial, now on the air in Ohio and Iowa. I’ve posted the video and transcript of the 30-second spot below.

So what if the next Iowa caucuses are nearly four years away? I’m on Public Policy Polling’s wavelength: 2016 Iowa caucus polling is interesting, even if it doesn’t mean much now.

In an interview with ABC News today, President Barack Obama confirmed that he thinks same-sex couples “should be able to get married.”

UPDATE: Added more Iowa political reaction below.

Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa poll paints a pretty picture for President Barack Obama going into the general election campaign.

President Barack Obama’s campaign launched a new television commercial today in nine swing states, including Iowa. The 60-second spot and annotated transcript are after the jump. This commercial focuses on how the president dealt with the challenges facing him when he took office. Unlike the Obama campaign’s last tv ad, this one does not mention his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.

Vice President Joe Biden appeared to make news on “Meet the Press” yesterday with a clear statement backing full marriage rights for same-sex couples. Obama administration staff immediately tried to deny that Biden had said anything newsworthy.

UPDATE: Added information below about the debate over endorsing marriage equality in the Democratic Party’s national platform and the honor three ousted Iowa Supreme Court justices will receive later today.

My Newt Gingrich campaign deathwatch thread was about a year ahead of its time, but Gingrich finally suspended his presidential campaign this afternoon.  

President Barack Obama outlined plans to “complete our mission and end the war in Afghanistan” in a televised speech last night from Kabul. After signing an agreement with President Hamid Karzai, Obama said 23,000 U.S. troops will come home from the war zone by the end of this summer, and withdrawal will be complete by the end of 2014. Beyond that date, he promised, U.S. troops will have only “narrow security missions” in Afghanistan, “But we will not build permanent bases in this country, nor will we be patrolling its cities and mountains.”  

For obvious security reasons, Obama hadn’t announced ahead of time his plans to visit Afghanistan on the first anniversary of the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

I’ve posted the full text of Obama’s remarks after the jump, along with reaction from Representative Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02). I will update this post later as other members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation respond to the president’s speech. Last year Democratic Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Bruce Braley (D, IA-01) advocated bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan more quickly than currently scheduled.

UPDATE: Added comments below from Braley and Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. Both are concerned about our Afghanistan policy, but from very different perspectives.

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is launching a new television commercial today in Iowa, Virginia, and Ohio. The spot responds to a negative ad by the 501(c)4 group Americans for Prosperity, pivoting to an attack on future Republican nominee Mitt Romney. After the jump I’ve posted video clips and transcripts of those commercials and the latest anti-Obama ad from the 501(c)4 group American Future Fund.

Late last week, the U.S. House approved four bills related to cybersecurity. Only one was controversial: the Cyber Intelligence and Sharing Protection Act (CISPA), which the House passed on April 26. Depending on your point of view, CISPA is either a useful tool for cracking down on cyber threats or a huge threat to the civil liberties of internet users.

The 206 Republicans and 42 Democrats who voted for this bill included Iowans Leonard Boswell (IA-03), Tom Latham (IA-04), and Steve King (IA-05). Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) were among the 140 Democrats who voted no, joined by 28 House Republicans (roll call). More details on this bill and on the House debate are after the jump.

Federal income taxes are due today for most Americans, unless you’ve filed for an extension like Mitt Romney. (What was he thinking?)

This thread is for any comments related to tax policy at any level of government. Follow me after the jump for links to news, facts and figures about taxes.

UPDATE: Added statements from Representatives Steve King, Dave Loebsack, and Leonard Boswell below. Loebsack and Boswell reference “equal pay day” rather than “tax day.”

This afternoon U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a bill to impose a minimum tax rate of 30 percent on taxpayers who collect at least $1 million in income. The motion received 51 votes in favor and only 45 against, but in the convoluted world of Senate procedure, Democrats needed 60 votes to approve a “motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to consider” the bill. All but one Democrat voted for cloture, while all but one Republican voted against. Iowa’s Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley split on party lines. Neither has issued a statement on today’s vote, but after the jump I’ve posted an excerpt from the “Q&A on taxes” in Grassley’s latest e-mail newsletter to constituents.

President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats plan to flog the “Buffett rule” repeatedly throughout the election year. A few samples of the preferred talking points on both sides are below, just after the Grassley commentary.

Left unsaid: we wouldn’t be having this debate if Congressional Democrats and/or the president had refused to extend the Bush tax cuts for the top income brackets in late 2010 (as most of them had promised to do during the Bush presidency).

I try to ignore the bogus controversies and fake outrage that dominate cable television news coverage, but the big to-do over Hilary Rosen saying Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life” is on my mind this weekend.

Some people with big megaphones in the Iowa Republican world are still not sold on Mitt Romney for president.  

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.  

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign accuses Republican front-runner Mitt Romney of standing with Big Oil in a new television commercial running in Iowa, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, and Virginia. The video and transcript of the Obama campaign’s second ad in Iowa are after the jump. It’s a direct response to an anti-Obama spot about high gasoline prices, which is now running in Iowa and other swing states.

The Obama campaign’s first television commercial in Iowa and other swing states focused on energy policy and criticized the “secretive oil billionaires attacking President Obama.”  

Groups opposing and supporting President Barack Obama’s re-election are making high gas prices the focal point of new television commercials in Iowa and other swing states. Videos and transcripts of the latest ads by the American Energy Alliance and Priorities USA are after the jump.

Last week Obama urged Congress to end tax breaks for oil companies, citing the industry’s high profits. U.S. Senate Republicans filibustered a bill that would have ended several deductions for five major oil companies and extended various renewable energy tax incentives. Senator Tom Harkin voted to move forward with that bill, but Senator Chuck Grassley voted to block it, as he did with similar legislation in May 2011.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? I’m catching up on two stories I didn’t have time to write about during the past week: President Barack Obama’s choice of Jim Yong Kim to be next president of the World Bank, and Vice President Joe Biden’s March 28 visits to Davenport and Sioux City. Kim was born in South Korea but grew up in Muscatine, where his family moved when he was five years old. More clips about Kim and Biden’s latest Iowa trip are after the jump.

Sad news from the south side of Des Moines: Cha Cha, the male lion at the Blank Park Zoo, was euthanized this week after being diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer. He was 16 years old.

This is an open thread; all topics welcome.  

Friday marked the second anniversary of President Barack Obama signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as health care reform or “Obamacare.” After the jump I enclose lots of news related to the milestone, including comments from Iowa elected officials and statistics on how certain provisions affect Iowans.

This morning the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to start hearing oral arguments regarding the constitutionality of the health care reform law. Governor Terry Branstad signed Iowa on to one of the lawsuits challenging the Affordable Care Act last year. Near the end of this post I’ve included some speculation about how the justices may rule (or punt).

U.S. Attorney Stephanie Rose told members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that she wasn’t a key decision maker regarding the May 2008 immigration raid in Postville, Iowa.

Last month President Barack Obama nominated Stephanie Rose, U.S. attorney for Iowa’s northern district, for a federal judgeship in Iowa’s southern district. If confirmed, Rose would become the first woman to serve as a district judge in Iowa’s southern district. Today the Des Moines Register published an opinion piece urging U.S. senators not to “rubber-stamp” Rose’s nomination.  

Catching up on some news from last week, President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign named Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller as one of 35 national co-chairs. The only other state attorney general on the list is Kamala Harris of California. After making a show of abandoning Miller’s working group on foreclosure fraud last year, she eventually signed on to the settlement reached with five major lenders earlier this month.

In a press release, Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina predicted that the national co-chairs “will be tremendous assets on the ground as we build the biggest grassroots campaign in history.” I wouldn’t count on much help from Miller there. His 2010 re-election campaign had no grassroots operation whatsoever. He didn’t even have a campaign website up until September of the election year, and his first advertising appeared a few weeks before the election.

The Obama campaign is hiring organizers for the spring, summer, and fall in Iowa and many other states. I am seeking comment about where the organizers will be assigned to work in Iowa. CORRECTION: Bleeding Heartland user albert point out in the comments that this listing is for unpaid internships. My understanding is that the Obama campaign is also hiring paid field organizers for Iowa,  and I will update this post with further details when available.

Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum all lead President Barack Obama in the latest Iowa poll that Selzer & Co conducted for the Des Moines Register. The Register posted the toplines on its website Saturday evening. Paul leads Obama by 49 percent to 42 percent, Santorum leads by 48 percent to 44 percent, and Romney leads by 46 percent to 44 percent. Obama crushes Newt Gingrich by 51 percent to 37 percent.

I’ll update this post tomorrow with additional details, to be published in the Sunday Des Moines Register. If Selzer’s poll of 611 likely voters (drawn from a sample of 800 Iowa adults) is accurate, Obama’s campaign has a lot of work to do here. Reaching 270 electoral votes without winning Iowa would be difficult for the president.

UPDATE: The exact wording of the election questions and results are here (pdf).

President Barack Obama released his draft budget for the 2013 fiscal year yesterday. Details on the president’s proposed spending and tax rates are after the jump, along with reaction from the Iowans in Congress and some of their challengers.