Governor Kim Reynolds showed yet again on May 11 that she will happily undermine vulnerable Iowans’ household budgets in order to please Republican allies and business lobby groups.

But her plan to turn down tens of millions of dollars a week in federal unemployment benefits rests on flawed premises.

Jeff Clothier reacts to the news that Governor Kim Reynolds is pulling Iowa out of federal pandemic-related unemployment programs, effective June 12. -promoted by Laura Belin

I work as a trainer, primarily for Unemployment Insurance, for Iowa Workforce Development. Between May and September 2020 I received unemployment benefits, having been riffed from my corporate job due to COVID-19.

Some facts are left out of the discussion around ending the $300 federal contribution to weekly benefit checks for Iowa recipients. Governor Reynolds and others insinuate – without much evidence – that these federal supplements to unemployment insurance are a disincentive to people returning to the workforce.

Ira Lacher: Star Trek postulated that galaxy exploration is a never-ending mission; we must consider combating COVID-19 in the same vein. -promoted by Laura Belin

Remember “flatten the curve”? That was the former administration’s non-policy, which basically involved keeping America’s woefully inadequate hospital system from being overwhelmed and our nation becoming the nonstop outdoor crematorium that is today’s India. Even under that mismatched crazy quilt of how to deal with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, nearly 600,000 and counting have died on these shores, and cases, though declining, continue to add up, by the thousands per day, with lasting consequences unknown.

It was thought that the advent and mass distribution of superbly effective vaccines would eliminate the threat since, public health officials surmised, once we attained herd immunity through vaccination, there would be little fear of virus spread.

But a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to that practicality: millions of Americans, and many American civic leaders, have brainlessly rejected this totally efficacious — and, it is reminded, FREE — solution that can do for COVID-19 what we did with polio and smallpox: get rid of it.

Herb Strentz continues his quest to correct misleading statements by Iowa’s senior senator. -promoted by Laura Belin

A fable to introduce this troubling post:

Once upon a time, there were children who wanted to be kind. They joined the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts because they knew Scouts did good deeds.

They had heard that people often had to wait in long lines to vote — even on very hot or very cold days. So they thought a good deed would be to bring lemonade and Girl Scout cookies to folks in line on hot days and hot cocoa and cookies on colder days. They might even earn Scout merit badges in Civics, Citizenship in the World or one like that.

One hot election day, they brought lemonade and cookies to people in line. But they did not get a merit badge. They got police records as juvenile offenders, because what they did was against the law. For a time, they did not live happily ever after.

In truth, it is not a fable.

The governor signed this bill on May 20. Original post follows.

“I look forward to signing this important legislation into law!” Governor Kim Reynolds tweeted on May 6, after the Iowa House and Senate approved a bill purportedly banning “vaccine passports.”

House File 889 fits a pattern of Republican bills that are best described as solutions in search of a problem. No state or local government agency intends to issue COVID-19 vaccine passports, nor are Iowa-based businesses rushing to require that customers show proof of coronavirus vaccinations.

A “message” bill can be useful politically, if it pleases a constituency Republicans need in the next election. The odd thing about this last-minute push is that Iowa’s most vocal vaccine skeptics don’t support the bill heading to the governor’s desk. On the contrary, they’re demanding a veto in the name of freedom.

Mike Tramontina is a lifelong Iowan who enjoys paddling and fishing in Iowa’s rivers and streams even though they are “unfishable” and “unswimmable.” -promoted by Laura Belin

May 5, 2021

Dear Administrator Regan:

It was very disappointing to read the Des Moines Register news article about your visit to Des Moines. While it is good that you joined the announcement of the demolition and redevelopment of the Dico site, you then went to meet with agricultural leaders to learn about the ethanol industry and livestock production. The disappointment was not making time to even take a question about Iowa’s filthy water and disgusting air.

A record number of Americans and Iowans passed away over the last year. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the largest share of the excess deaths and indirectly contributed to many fatalities from other causes (such as heart attacks or strokes).

Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics, Rachel Kidman, Rachel Margolis, and Emily Smith-Greenaway estimated that as of February 2021, approximately 37,300 children in the U.S. under age 18 “had lost at least 1 parent due to COVID-19, three-quarters of whom were adolescents.” Using figures for excess deaths during the pandemic (as opposed to confirmed coronavirus fatalities), the researchers estimated that 43,000 children in the U.S. have lost a parent to the virus. Their study used demographic modeling techniques as opposed to survey data.

The Iowa Department of Public Health’s spokesperson did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiry in early April about whether the agency has tracked how many Iowans who died of COVID-19 had children under age 18 or dependent adult children living in their home, and how many Iowans who died in the pandemic were primary caregivers to children (but not their parents).

Even without firm numbers, it’s clear that far more people than usual are experiencing their first Mother’s Day without their own mothers. This holiday can be one of the toughest milestones soon after a bereavement, and even many years later.

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has been on the road and on social media encouraging Iowans to get vaccinated for COVID-19, sometimes even administering the shots herself.

In a video released on May 4, Miller-Meeks highlighted her medical background and advocated for vaccines as a way of “getting our lives back to normal,” while acknowledging that getting a shot “is your decision to make.”

She was less tolerant of personal choices when approached the next day by a journalist seeking an interview.

Governor Kim Reynolds thrilled conservatives when she announced on Fox News last week that she wants to sign a bill banning transgender youth from competing on sports teams not matching their gender assigned at birth.

Defending the discriminatory policy during a news conference on May 5, Reynolds claimed five times that concerns about “fairness” are driving her commitment to address the issue.

This mean-spirited play to the GOP base has several dimensions. None of them are grounded in fairness.

Tamyra Harrison is founder and director of Iowans For D.C. Statehood. -promoted by Laura Belin

The Clarinda Herald-Journal published a letter on April 29 by Charles A. Petterson from Persia, Iowa, who criticized U.S. Representative Cindy Axne’s vote for D.C. statehood.

I would like to take this opportunity to correct some incorrect claims Mr. Petterson made.

Greg Cohen: We need to stop pretending the pandemic is over, because it’s not. -promoted by Laura Belin

Seven months ago, I wrote a letter to The Chariton Leader about my experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic — what was going right, what was going wrong, what frustrated me, and how America had responded. Here’s my follow up.

After more than one year, I hugged my children and grandchildren two weeks ago. I hugged my sister and brother in law last week.  Although the COVID-19 pandemic is not over, all of us have finally been vaccinated and we are now reasonably  safe to be together.  It has been the longest year of my life.

For the last year, health care workers and scientists have toiled tirelessly to protect us. Medications have greatly reduced the chances of our being hospitalized, and we have cut the death rate by 70 percent. After a terrible surge this winter, when I diagnosed two to ten people every day with COVID-related illness, I still diagnose people with COVID–19, but far fewer of them. This makes me hopeful we can end this pandemic sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, I fear what is happening now in Iowa and across America is undermining that work.

Herb Strentz: In practice, not speaking ill of any Republican means not holding one another accountable for what they advocate. -promoted by Laura Belin

The Republican Party continues its handiwork on the Ten Commandments Moses received from Jehovah some 3,500 years ago. First came the so-called eleventh commandment in 1966: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican.”

A new version of the first commandment emerged over the past five years: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Trump.”

State officials deployed “strike teams” involving the Iowa National Guard to more businesses last year than previously acknowledged.

Records the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) released on April 26 show seventeen workplaces received COVID-19 testing assistance through a strike team. The agency had stated in January that only ten workplaces (operated by nine companies) had strike team visits. Several newly-disclosed events benefited businesses linked to Governor Kim Reynolds’ major campaign donors.

Iowa used the strike teams mostly during the spring of 2020, when COVID-19 testing supplies were scarce. However, a strike team was sent to Iowa Select Farms administrative headquarters in mid-July, more than five weeks after the state had stopped providing testing help to other business. That company’s owners are Reynolds’ largest campaign contributors.

The governor asserted at a January news conference that the state had facilitated coronavirus testing for more than 60 companies, saying no firm was denied assistance. The newly-released records show nineteen businesses received testing kits from the state, and another nineteen were directed to a nearby Test Iowa site where their employees could schedule appointments.

The public health department’s spokesperson Sarah Ekstrand has not explained why she provided incomplete information about the strike team program in January. Nor has she clarified what criteria state officials used to determine which companies received which kind of testing assistance.

The governor’s spokesperson Pat Garrett did not respond to any of Bleeding Heartland’s emails on this subject. Reynolds walked away when I tried to ask her about the strike team decisions at a media gaggle on April 28.

Mercifully, history did not repeat itself on April 30, when the Iowa Board of Regents selected Barbara Wilson to be the next University of Iowa president. Wilson is supremely qualified for the job, having served for the last six years as the second-ranking administrator at the University of Illinois system, and in several leadership roles at the Urbana-Champaign campus. A news release enclosed in full below describes her relevant experience.

All four finalists considered this year were far more qualified than outgoing president Bruce Harreld was when the Regents picked him in 2015, following a search marred by favoritism and secret meetings that appeared to violate Iowa’s open meetings law.

Whereas the Faculty Senate voted no confidence in the Board of Regents after Harreld was hired, and the Daily Iowan newspaper ran the front-page headline “REGENTS’ DECISION CONDEMNED,” reaction to Wilson’s hiring was overwhelmingly positive from students and faculty. The Daily Iowan’s editorial board had endorsed either Wilson or Georgia State University Provost Wendy Hensel as the best choices to take the university forward.

I was pleasantly surprised the Regents tapped Wilson, even though she fired a football coach and an athletics director at Illinois over scandals including alleged mistreatment of student-athletes. During Harreld’s tenure, Iowa’s Athletics Director Gary Barta continued to receive raises and a contract extension even after costing the university millions of dollars in lawsuits over discrimination and a hostile work environment.

Governor Kim Reynolds revealed on April 29 that she is sending back $95 million in federal funds designated for testing students for COVID-19.

During a Fox News event featuring Republican governors, Reynolds said of President Joe Biden,

I think he thinks the COVID just started. I just returned 95 million dollars because they sent an additional 95 million dollars to the state of Iowa to get our kids back in the classroom by doing surveillance testing. And I said, “We’ve been in the classroom since August. Here’s your 95 million dollars back.”

Dan Piller: Far from rescuing rural Iowa, more broadband will hasten the exodus from farms and small towns into the cities. -promoted by Laura Belin

Everybody loves the idea of spending billions of tax dollars to wire the countryside with high speed broadband that is otherwise economically unfeasible. President Donald Trump took a few minutes away from trying to overturn the election last December to reward his loyal rural supporters with $10 billion for the high-speed internet access. President Joe Biden wants to set aside billions more for rural broadband in his “infrastructure” master plan.

In Iowa, Democrats are so cowed by the popularity of rural broadband they’ve acquiesced to Governor Kim Reynolds’ idea to let rural interests help themselves to hundreds of millions of state taxpayer dollars, mostly paid by Iowa’s city dwellers who amount to two-thirds of the state’s population, for rural broadband even though rural broadband will thus join anti-abortion and unlimited gun rights as Reynolds’ calling card to her rural base for her reelection next year.

Ira Lacher considers how to address COVID-19 vaccine resistance. -promoted by Laura Belin

Volunteering at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic recently, I encountered something making me start to believe that regardless of all the gloom surrounding who’s getting shots in America, we may be better off than we think.

A former colleague, one of the most egregious Trump supporters I’ve ever known, was there. For their second shot.

Most of the new crimes and enhanced penalties that would be established under a policing bill approved by the Iowa House would have a disparate impact on Black people, according to analysis from the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency.

Before passing Senate File 342, Iowa House members amended what had been a narrowly-focused bill on officer discipline to include several other so-called “Back the Blue” proposals: giving law enforcement more protection against lawsuits, increasing benefits for officers, and greatly increasing the criminal penalties for some protest-related actions.

For seven of the nine crimes addressed in the “Back the Blue” bill, now pending in the Iowa Senate, the LSA found the “conviction rate for African Americans exceeds the population proportion of the State, which would lead to a racial impact if trends remain constant.”

Herb Strentz challenged Senator Chuck Grassley to correct his false statements about Georgia’s new voting restrictions. -promoted by Laura Belin

When providers of information and commentary publish a “correction”— or the euphemism “clarification” — conventional journalism protocols call for saying, “We regret the error.”

Well, here’s a clarification that does not regret an error, but reflects the need to make a disappointing revision.

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office moved thousands of Iowans who did not vote in the 2020 general election to “inactive” status this month. But according to Linn County Auditor Joel Miller, a recent “No Activity” mailing from the state went to at least three groups of voters who should not have received it. Consequently, state officials “incorrectly inactivated” hundreds of voters in Linn County alone.

Staff in the Secretary of State’s office did not reply to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries on April 23, nor did they respond to a “Notice of Technical Infraction and Letter of Instruction“ Miller sent to Secretary of State Paul Pate the previous day.

Neil Hamilton shares remarks he delivered on “Iowa needs more nature imagination: Lessons from our missed opportunities“ at the Des Moines Area Community College Earth Day event on April 22. -promoted by Laura Belin

It is a pleasure to be with you as we celebrate Earth Day 51. Unfortunately, festivities for Earth Day 50 came and went with hardly a whisper, a casualty of our unfolding COVID pandemic. But even as our attention was drawn to the challenges we faced – the power of nature and being outdoors continued working on our lives. There are many lessons we will take from this shared experience but among the most significant is how it reaffirmed the valuable role nature plays in keeping us healthy and sane.

That is why it is fitting on Earth Day 51 as we emerge from our cocoons – we use this opportunity to think critically about our future with Iowa’s land and water. To do so it is important to consider some history – especially some of our most significant lost opportunities – and identify any lessons for the years ahead. The good news is we have a legion of conservation champions working to protect nature in Iowa and the ranks are growing.

The bad news we are still in the minority and face stiff headwinds.

Jim Chrisinger: “Polarized” sounds like both sides becoming more extreme. That’s not what’s happening. One party is jeopardizing America’s 245-year grand experiment in self-government. -promoted by Laura Belin

We continually hear that our country is polarized. That implies symmetry; it gives the impression that Americans are moving farther apart on a left-right axis. The left and right each become more extreme while the middle thins.  We keep hearing politicians, pundits, and journalists claim “both sides” are responsible for this polarization.  

That’s not what’s happening, people!      

Yes, each party has extremists; that’s nothing new. What’s new is that one party, the Republican party, has veered off the political continuum. They’ve sailed off a cliff.  

U.S. Representatives Ashley Hinson (IA-01) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02) were among dozens of House Republicans whose campaigns received $5,800 in March from Stephen Wynn, a former Republican National Committee finance chair who resigned in 2018 after former employees alleged sexual harassment or assault.

$5,800 is the maximum amount individuals can donate to federal campaigns for the 2022 election cycle ($2,900 each for the primary and general elections).

Eleven weeks after beginning to inspect workplace safety at the Iowa capitol, the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) informed legislative leaders about conditions “that may expose workers to COVID-19 hazards.” OSHA recommended “immediate corrective actions where needed,” as well as a review of safety and health practices “to ensure consistency” with advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control guidelines

What took them so long?

Bruce Lear: A bipartisan policing reform law enacted last year was supposed to be a start. As it turned out, that bill was also the the end. -promoted by Laura Belin

When a police officer pulls me over for a traffic stop, I don’t think death sentence. I think where is my registration and insurance card, and what did I do now?

That’s white privilege, and that’s not how any of this should work.

I know it’s possible to honor and respect the police, and still be horrified when unarmed person of color is murdered by a police officer, often on video, and then the officer is exonerated by internal investigation or by the courts.

I also know there is a middle ground between the “Defund the police” crowd and those who know we need strong, fair, well trained, law enforcement not required to play the role of social worker or psychologist. 

Something has to change in this country. Iowa lawmakers took a first step in 2020, but didn’t follow through this year.

A longstanding effort by Iowa Senate Republicans to reduce the number of Iowans receiving various forms of public assistance got a quiet boost last week from Governor Kim Reynolds.

For the first time, the governor’s draft human services budget included provisions that would create asset tests for federal food assistance and require the Iowa Department of Human Services to establish a new “eligibility verification system” for Medicaid and several other public assistance programs.

State Senator Jason Schultz has pushed similar legislation for several years running. Each session, Senate Republicans have approved the bills, which died in the House Human Resources Committee (see here and here).

Ian Miller looks for clues on how many of Iowa’s COVID-19 fatalities might have been missed in official counts. -promoted by Laura Belin

Since the onset of the pandemic, I have been skeptical about official statistics on SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), particularly numbers of total infections and total deaths, whether from the state of Iowa or from the federal government. I share I.F. Stone’s operating assumption that all governments lie (which is not to say that governments always lie).

Furthermore, Governor Kim Reynolds has done nothing to earn any benefit of the doubt, with her opaque dealings, refusal to take leadership on community PPE use, and general underselling of the pandemic.

It is with this point of view that I saw Laura Belin’s tweet from April 17. In sharing a chart Charles Gaba created, which stated that 1 out of every 355 New Jersey residents had died of COVID-19, Laura wrote:

Passing a budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1 is the most important unfinished business for the Iowa legislature’s regular 2021 session. But House and Senate Republican leaders haven’t found consensus on spending targets for several large pieces of the roughly $8 billion state budget.

In a move without precedent in decades, Senate Republicans declined this this year to participate in the joint appropriations subcommittees where lawmakers review and discuss agency spending requests. Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver and Appropriations Committee chair Tim Kraayenbrink did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries about who made the decision or why.

John Norwood is a soil and water commissioner in Polk County. -promoted by Laura Belin

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig was the guest on the latest edition of the Iowa PBS program “Iowa Press.” The first exchange was revealing.

State Representative Ray Sorensen included two negative memes about COVID-19 vaccines in his latest weekly newsletter on Iowa legislative happenings.

Since early March, the Republican has regularly shared memes purporting to be humorous near the end of his online updates about bills the House has approved or is considering. The edition Sorensen sent out late last week, covering week 13 of the legislative session, included the following two images, interspersed with memes mocking public assistance programs, feminists, environmentalists, President Joe Biden, and leftist intellectuals.

Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson compares Iowa’s per capita COVID-19 case rates and death rates to the numbers for neighboring states, the national average, and the best-performing state (Vermont). -promoted by Laura Belin

It is good that Iowans are getting their COVID-19 vaccinations apace. Iowa now ranks in the top half of states for having administered one dose, as gauged by percentage of population, and in the top third of the states for having administered a second.

No matter how well the state performs on vaccinations in the next few months, though, it will never excuse Iowa’s abysmal record over the past year in caring for its residents.

Iowa ranks seventh worst among the states in its incidence of coronavirus cases per capita, and 17th worst in its death rate. In short, Iowa’s political leadership, its perceived commercial imperatives, and its citizens unarguably came up short when compared with the rest of the U.S.

Charles Bruner is a longtime advocate for policies that support children and strengthen families. -promoted by Laura Belin

About this essay

I studied political science at the beginning of the 1970s at one of the elitist of universities, Stanford University. My graduate school class, if not all radicals, shared a serious critique of American government and the military-industrial complex, the Vietnam war, the academic privilege and not freedom that embodied the Stanford administration, and the failure for society to listen to youth and follow-through on the vision expressed in the decidedly liberal document, The Port Huron Statement.

I returned to Iowa in 1975 feeling alienated and full of angst at my better understanding of the darker side of American politics. But I had no clue how to contribute to changing it. Fortunately, I found a group of 20-somethings in Iowa – largely through the Community Action Research Group (Iowa’s Public Interest Research Group) – doing that work in the policy field on the environment. They connected me to a job at the Iowa Welfare Association funded by the Compensatory Education and Training Act, the federal jobs program that provided nonprofits with funding to create jobs. It gave me space to learn and grow, as it did for others in my group.

Carl Olsen is the founder of Iowans for Medical Marijuana. -promoted by Laura Belin

Don’t be fooled by quasi-legal schemes to tax and regulate cannabis. There is a federal solution for doing this the right way.

If legislators tell you it makes their eyes glass over, tell them to leave the capitol and don’t come back until they are sober. They should not be legislating unless they can clearly see the road ahead.

Herb Strentz: Senator Chuck Grassley does not acknowledge that if Americans are losing faith in democracy, it is partly because he and others avoid saying Joe Biden won the election. -promoted by Laura Belin

Seems like old times.

The April 10 issue of U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley’s newsletter, THE SCOOP, calls to mind his old deceptions about government-run health plans that would “pull the plug on grandma,” and about the limited estate tax, which Grassley wrongly says has driven Iowa farm families into poverty or liquidation. 

Fear-mongering about “death panels” arose in 2009 in opposition to the health care reform bill (the Affordable Care Act). The “death tax” rhetoric continues to be a favorite for Grassley and Senator Joni Ernst, even though Neil Hamilton, former director of the Drake University Agricultural Law Center, has described such claims as “hogwash.”

In THE SCOOP, Grassley now misleads readers about what the state of Georgia’s recently enacted “voting reform” would do, and why Republican state legislatures around the nation are considering or have already adopted new restrictions on voting. 

Ira Lacher considers whether “the only way to heal is to treat our society the way we would treat traumatized individuals: small-group therapy.” -promoted by Laura Belin

America has a mental health crisis.

Not the type conservatives insist makes someone turn a movie theater, shopping mall, or hotel parking lot into a kill zone. A mental health crisis that is contributing to a monumental, perhaps unprecedented loss of ability to connect with reality. The reason is extreme trauma on a national scale.

Governor Kim Reynolds made headlines on April 8 by telling a conservative talk radio host Iowa had turned down a request to shelter some unaccompanied migrant children in federal custody. “This is not our problem. This is the president’s problem,” Reynolds explained.

“No one will ever confuse Reynolds with Gov. Robert Ray,” observed political cartoonist Brian Duffy. “This is surely the low point of the administration of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds,” noted longtime commentator Chuck Offenburger. Many other Iowans were disappointed or even “ashamed” by the governor’s lack of compassion.

But never let it be said that Reynolds lacks any charitable impulses. Thanks to her willingness to donate her time and the use of a state-owned building, the private Des Moines Christian School raised $30,100 at its True-Blue Gala auction last night.

Buzz Malone is organizing director of Teamsters Local 238. -promoted by Laura Belin

Regardless of the outcome of the unionization campaign in Bessemer, Alabama, the efforts of workers there have delivered a powerful message to the nation.

Enacted 86 years ago, the National Labor Relations Act sent an equally powerful message to companies large and small: that workers have inalienable rights of free speech, legally protected concerted activity for economic improvements, and the right to form, join, and assist a union of their choosing.

Governor Kim Reynolds is one step closer to getting the massive broadband expansion she asked Iowa lawmakers to fund.

Whether Iowans in underserved communities will be able to afford new high-speed internet is an open question, however.

Herb Strentz recounts some little-known Iowa history from the 1940s. -promoted by Laura Belin

Here’s an “Iowa nice” story for you—a break from the disturbing news and commentary of the day, particularly the news about bigotry and assaults on Americans of Asian descent.