Another Friday night has brought another irregular ouster of a federal official whose work should be insulated from politics.
Four days later, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, a self-styled warrior for oversight and accountability in Washington, has said nothing. Neither has Senator Joni Ernst, who like Grassley serves on the committee that oversees the justice system.
Herb Strentz reflects on the president’s June 20 rally in Tulsa. -promoted by Laura Belin
In a fitting start to his re-election campaign, President Donald Trump gave a stump speech riddled with falsity. And in keeping with the bizarre nature of the Trump presidency, he did so in an arena known by the same name as a world-renowned scholar on the importance of being truthful.
“You know, I haven’t heard Theresa Greenfield say one thing that Chuck Schumer hasn’t told her to say,” Senator Joni Ernst declared today on her Twitter feed. “And that’s not what Iowans expect in a leader.”
Several political reporters quickly noted the role reversal in Ernst’s call for six debates with her Democratic opponent. Usually challengers want more debates in order to raise their profiles before the general election. An incumbent making that demand is likely trailing, as the three most recent published polls on Iowa’s Senate race suggest.
Other endangered Republican senators have similarly called for frequent debates this fall, a sign of justified fear that President Donald Trump’s sinking approval will drag them down in November.
Another thing about Ernst’s taunt struck me as more strange, though. If she wants to make the election about who slavishly follows her party’s leader, Iowa’s junior senator is on exceptionally weak ground.
Based on the latest Iowa poll for the Des Moines Register, Dan Guild wonders whether history will repeat itself, with an unpopular president taking down U.S. senators from his party. -promoted by Laura Belin
The presidential election of 1980 was by far the most important election of my lifetime. It gave power to social conservatives who had never tasted power before (Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were both pro-choice). It also brought to fore and gave explicit expression to white racial resentment when Ronald Reagan spoke of “welfare queens” driving Cadillacs.
The 1980 election changed not only Republican politics (every GOP nominee since has been pro-life) but also Democratic politics. In the aftermath of the Reagan presidency, Democrats began talking about “ending welfare as we know it.” President Bill Clinton signed a major welfare reform bill 45 days before the 1996 election, in which he had a significant lead.
What is difficult to explain to those who have no memory of 1980 is how shocking the results were. It was not just that Reagan won, but that Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate for the first time in decades. The GOP picked up twelve Senate seats, beating some well-liked Democrats with national reputations.
Herb Strentz: Today’s reality show from the Oval Office may be following plotlines imagined by 1960s authors with ties to the leading newspapers of Iowa and Minnesota. -promoted by Laura Belin
A provocative “Iowa angle” links fiction of the 1960s to fact in the 2020 dispute between President Donald Trump and several of the nation’s current or former military leaders. Trump advocated using military force to quell national unrest sparked by the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed African American, at the hands of Minneapolis police.
In its June 8 newsletter for subscribers, the well-respected international magazine The Economist characterized Trump’s call to arms as America’s “worst civil-military crisis for a generation, one that threatens to do enduring harm to democratic norms and the standing and cohesion of its armed forces.”
The Iowa angle goes back to the John F. Kennedy era and best-selling novels by former writers at The Des Moines Register and the Minneapolis Tribune, who wrote about scenarios of presidential instability and misuse of the military on American soil.
The 2016 elections were so devastating for Iowa Democrats that I thought Iowa had probably relinquished swing-state status and would not have a targeted U.S. Senate race in 2020.
However, Senator Joni Ernst’s approval numbers have been sliding for some time. The first two polls published following last week’s primary election show Democratic Senate nominee Theresa Greenfield slightly leading Ernst.
The same surveys point to a highly competitive race between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden for Iowa’s six electoral votes.
U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley’s reputation as a defender of whistleblowers and government oversight has taken a hit lately, as President Donald Trump sidelined five inspectors general over a span of two months and rebuffed the senator’s demand for an explanation.
In an escalation of sorts, Grassley announced on June 4 that he would hold up two of Trump’s nominees until the White House complies with federal law requiring that the president explain in writing why he removed inspectors general.
The senator might have some leverage if he were willing to block high-priority nominees for the administration. But the opposite is true. The same day Grassley took a stand on inspectors general, he and Iowa’s Senator Joni Ernst advanced yet another unqualified judicial nominee.
Herb Strentz: Churches in the Des Moines area have found ways to remain safely “open” to their members and the community without resuming in-person services. The title references a 1642 poem by Richard Lovelace. -promoted by Laura Belin
Right after President Donald Trump’s aide Kellyanne Conway endorsed “alternative facts” in her January 2017 defense of false statements about the number of people at Trump’s inauguration, Amazon had two additions to its best-seller list: George Orwell’s 1984 and Sinclair Lewis’ novel It Can’t Happen Here.
Governor Kim Reynolds denied 35 requests to sign Iowa on to multi-state legal actions during the first year of an unusual arrangement in which Attorney General Tom Miller ceded some of his authority.
Reynolds refused to allow the state to weigh in on lawsuits related to federal or state policies on immigration, reproductive rights, environmental regulation, consumer protection, gun safety, LGBTQ rights, and access to President Donald Trump’s personal records.
During the same time frame, the governor approved eighteen requests from Miller to join cases involving a wide range of legal matters.
For the fourth time in less than two months, President Donald Trump has fired an inspector general who had stirred up trouble for him or his political allies.
Iowa’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley has championed whistleblowers and inspectors general for decades. Yet just like last month, he declined to condemn Trump’s retaliatory move. Grassley didn’t mention State Department Inspector General Steve Linick’s dismissal on his widely-viewed Twitter feed this weekend. Meanwhile, his office released a statement that dinged Linick for not looking into “the State Department’s role in advancing the debunked Russian collusion investigation.”
An essay by Herb Strentz inspired by Caliban, “the original strange bedfellow.” -promoted by Laura Belin
As we approach Iowa’s primary election on June 2, here and elsewhere, Republican and Democratic Party slates often reflect the observation “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”
The “bedfellows” adage goes back more than 400 years, attributed to Act 2 Scene 2 of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which premiered in 161l, probably in The Globe Theatre.
Ira Lacher: Eugenics forces us to consider how Donald Trump first reacted to the COVID-19 threat, how he dealt with its onset, and how he wants to “reopen” America. -promoted by Laura Belin
Forced sterilization.
“Better baby” contests.
Social engineering.
Selective breeding.
These attributes pertain not to Nazi Germany but the United States. They are components of the white supremacist pseudoscientific movement known as “eugenics.”
The gaslighting was strong during Governor Kim Reynolds’ White House meeting on May 6 and Vice President Mike Pence’s Iowa visit two days later. Pence described Iowa as a COVID-19 “success story” on Wednesday. He elaborated in West Des Moines on May 8,
“Iowa has been leading the way with Governor Kim Reynolds […] From very early on, the strong steps and mitigation efforts have made a difference here. We grieve the loss of life here in Iowa, but the numbers speak for themselves. The outbreak in Iowa has not been like we’ve seen in other states and other metropolitan areas around the country. It’s a tribute to your early, strong steps.”
Meanwhile, Sioux City still tops a national list of “metro areas with the most recent cases and deaths, relative to their population, in the last two weeks.” Waterloo/Cedar Falls is fourth. Confirmed COVID-19 cases are rising rapidly in several smaller counties where Reynolds lifted restrictions on some business activities last week.
But that’s a topic for another day.
I was struck by Reynolds’ failure this week to follow best practices for slowing the spread of the virus.
Herb Strentz reflects on President Donald Trump’s religious supporters as well as Christian voices of opposition. -promoted by Laura Belin
Take 1: A Farce—President’s ‘Trinity’ trumps Christianity’s
In the mix of politics and religion, President Trump has his own “Trinity” for his supporters on the Christian right, who in Iowa include our U.S. senators and governor.
While Trump strays from Christian principles of humility, sacrifice and service, he and his acolytes do have a threefold creed to offer their faithful.
Instead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trump F-S-H translates into Fake news, Satire and Hypocrisy.
Herb Strentz makes the case that Donald Trump is not a “modern-day Harry Truman.” -promoted by Laura Belin
Can’t pass up an advance opportunity to refute Donald Trump campaign rhetoric that may be headed our way. Here’s a chance to counter the fear, “A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots.”
Bruce Lear: “America is waking up to yet another harmful condition that seems to be infecting the country. I’m afraid it’s a disease with no vaccine.” -promoted by Laura Belin
One of the baffling things about COVID-19 is the symptoms vary from person to person. One person may have few respiratory symptoms but will lose the senses of taste and smell. Others may have a severe head ache and stomach issues. Still others have severe breathing problems, a high fever, and need to be rushed to an emergency room.
Now, America is waking up to yet another harmful condition that seems to be infecting the country. In medical terms it might be called “Intellectualimbacility.” I’ll just call it, “Dumb stuff during a pandemic.”
Dan Piller speculates on what the federal government might attempt if the 2020 presidential and Congressional elections swing toward Democrats. -promoted by Laura Belin
Democrats have learned, the hard way, to never count on a landslide before votes are cast. But the combination of a 1930s-style economic collapse, President Donald Trump’s manic blunderings, and his dismal poll numbers no doubt generate dreams in progressive minds of a landslide election in November that sweeps them into unchallengeable control of both the White House and congress in a manner similar to the Democratic sweeps of 1932 or 1964.
So what might happen if Joe Biden and a host of happy progressives settle into power in Washington next January (probably after walking past gun-toting, camouflage-wearing Trumpers making a Last Stand)?
“If China hadn’t covered up #Covid19, the effects of this pandemic could have been lessened,” U.S. Senator Joni Ernst posted on her political Twitter feed and Facebook page on April 25. “We need to hold China accountable.”
Her words were practically a carbon copy of how the National Republican Senatorial Committee has advised endangered GOP incumbents to discuss the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Ira Lacher: Too many media leaders still don’t seem to understand that by not calling out Trump for who and what he is, they are perpetuating his legitimacy. -promoted by Laura Belin
Why aren’t we being told what is obvious to anyone with a brain: The president of the United States is a lunatic. A dangerous lunatic.
That inescapable fact was brought home on April 23, when the person holding the office that for decades has been revered by hundreds of millions of people speculated that Americans could inject themselves with chemical disinfectant or submit to exposure of heat and light as a way to cure COVID-19.
Herb Strentz: Thanks to lockdowns and self-isolation, we don’t have distractions or escape mechanisms to help us cope with COVID-19 and Trump-45. -promoted by Laura Belin
One of the “curses” or “blessings” of the novel coronavirus pandemic is that we may be reading and thinking more. Either pursuit can be unsettling, nerve-wracking, or even hopeful–but it’s the best we have going for us.
Thanks to lockdowns and self-isolation, we don’t have distractions or escape mechanisms to help us cope with COVID-19 and Trump-45. We have no “bread” — like restaurants to go to, libraries and museums to visit, performances to attend. We have no “circuses” — like televised sports, the I-Cubs at Principal Park, or similar diversions.
Herb Strentz: Senator Chuck Grassley defines his duties as looking out for the citizens of Iowa, as though those duties have nothing at all to do with Trump’s actions. -promoted by Laura Belin
Maybe Chicken Little had something after all in his squawking, “The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling.”
Maybe I had something just as panic-stricken in an email I sent U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley last year, when I suggested he might be “an assistant gravedigger for democracy.”
Both reflections tie in with concerns about the double whammy now striking our nation: dealing with the novel coronavirus and having Donald Trump as president. Our country’s odds are good on surviving COVID-19, but not as good on surviving Trump. Virus-related issues crank up the zoom lens in monitoring the president, and that’s un-nerving because even a microscopic look at Trump can be as troubling as a microscopic look at the virus.
John Whiston reflects on several books about industrial decline and the social dislocation that has accompanied it. -promoted by Laura Belin
A friend emailed me the other day, a friend I worked with forty years ago at a plywood mill in Bonner, Montana. We pulled veneer on the green chain, very heavy repetitive work. He asked me to talk with his 30-something son, who might be having some legal problems. So, I spent about an hour in conversation with this young man.
His was familiar story, very much what I’d heard as a lawyer in Iowa for 25 years. I learned he had graduated high school with few skills. While his father and grandfather had been able to go to work at the Bonner mill with good wages, medical insurance, a pension, and a strong union, the mill had closed. He then described a few experiences that seemed to fit in a small way with a whole constellation of symptoms that I had seen in my working-class clients: unemployment, underemployment, injuries, illness, disability, substance abuse, terrible credit, family issues, run-ins with the law.
I now suspect that the underlying problem is a profound despair. Granted, not every working-class person displays this despair, but it appears in an increasing portion. Their despondency bleeds out into their families and communities and affects us all.
Dan Piller: Donald Trump benefitted from a slumping agricultural economy in 2016, but the Iowa farm economy has slid even further on his watch. -promoted by Laura Belin
A mystery that will baffle historians a century from now is how a fast-talking New Yorker like Donald Trump could win Iowa’s six electoral votes by with a 9.4 percentage point margin over Hillary Clinton despite losing six of Iowa’s most populous counties.
Trump was called a “populist,” which would have surprised original 19th century populists such as Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan, who at least lived in the outlier states of Tennessee and Nebraska and faithfully represented the values of their regions.
But despite a near-total lack of connections and experience with Iowa, Trump overcame Clinton’s margins in Scott, Polk, Story, Linn, Black Hawk, Johnson, and Scott counties to win big in rural counties. Trump’s politics of resentment played well in non-urban Iowa, beset by losses of population, schools and businesses, rising drug and crime problems, and a feeling of being culturally denigrated by Clinton and the coastal-dominated political and media elites.
Trump also benefitted from a slumping Iowa agricultural economy in 2016, which tends to work in favor of challengers. But there lies the rub for President 45; the Iowa farm economy has slid even further on his watch. As farmers take to the fields to plant this month, troubling numbers are coming from all sides as the effects of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the trade war on agriculture are tallied.
Deb Scharper launched her campaign today in Iowa Senate 26, one of two Obama/Trump state Senate districts where no one filed to run in the June 2 Democratic primary.
While outside the top tier of Democratic pickup opportunities in the upper chamber, this district was decided by a narrow margin in 2012. Scharper’s race against first-term State Senator Waylon Brown is also worth watching for clues on whether Republicans, who now hold a 32-18 Senate majority, can maintain their advantage in the part of Iowa that swung most heavily to Donald Trump in 2016.
Bruce Lear reflects on signs of hope and denial brought on by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. -promoted by Laura Belin
Christians just celebrated Easter with a big helping of ham and social distancing. For Christians, the Easter season story is about both hope and denial. The pandemic season story shares the same two themes.
Nurses and doctors, and EMTs give us hope that not all Easter seasons will require a ventilator, and a hunt for personal protective equipment (PPE) instead of the bright colored surprises the Easter bunny leaves. These people are risking their lives and the lives of their families to treat as many sick people under horrendous conditions to give hope a chance.
But the highly trained medical people are not the only hope heroes.
Most Christians (aside from those in the Orthodox Church and Jehovah’s Witnesses) are celebrating Easter today, and Jews all over the world are in the middle of the Passover festival. But the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted holiday celebrations along with almost every other aspect of normal life.
Many Iowa houses of worship have adapted by live-streaming services or broadcasting them on radio frequencies congregants can hear from cars parked outside the building.
U.S. Representative Steve King asserted on April 7 that publicizing the names, addresses, and medical history of those who test positive for novel coronavirus (COVID-19) would help the country overcome the pandemic by allowing people to “make better decisions.”
Dan Piller: Senator Joni Ernst and her Republican handlers don’t need to be told what low corn prices do to incumbents in Iowa in election year. -promoted by Laura Belin
President Donald Trump plans to collude with Russian President Vladimir Putin again this year. We don’t need Robert Mueller or another Steele dossier to tell us–Trump told us so last week. He also is working with OPEC.
It all has to do with oil. At stake: Texas’ 38 electoral votes, Iowa’s ethanol industry, any hope of better corn prices, continued low gasoline prices, and U.S. Senator Joni Ernst’s re-election.
President Donald Trump has added to the list of officials he has sidelined for their role in exposing or investigating him. In what Aaron Blake called a “Friday night news dump for the ages,” Trump informed leaders of the U.S. House and Senate Intelligence Committees on April 3 that he is removing Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.
Trump put Atkinson on administrative leave to stop him from doing his job before his dismissal takes effect next month (the president was required to give Congress 30 days notice of such action).
James C. Larew: “Be it remembered as the date and place when the gap between the nation’s leadership and its citizens became too wide to close.” -promoted by Laura Belin
On April 2, 2020, the effective command of Acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly, and the administration for which he had cowardly acted, died.
Only a day earlier, already informed of the dire straits faced by the crew of the novel coronavirus-infested USS Theodore Roosevelt, Modly had defended Captain Brett E. Crozier’s efforts to secure more effective action by a tone-deaf Defense Department, slow-to-move in the rapidly-changing pandemic environment.
Herb Strentz: Are there really two sides to every story, when the issues may be far more complex than that or one side is a flat-out lie? -promoted by Laura Belin
On April Fool’s day, a USA TODAY editorial-page package offered this appraisal to millions of readers, including those of the Des Moines Register: “From the outset, President Donald Trump pledged to put the full weight of the federal government behind combating this crisis and protecting the health and safety of our fellow citizens.”
Dan Guild examines opinion polls from 1979 and 1980 for clues on how the COVID-19 crisis could affect President Donald Trump’s approval. -promoted by Laura Belin
The White House predicts between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans may die because of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Ten million people in this country have lost their jobs in two weeks. Ian Bremmer noted that an estimated 3.5 billion people were in lockdown because of the pandemic, which probably makes it the most widely shared experience in human history.
Don Doumakes is a Democrat from Harrison County. -promoted by Laura Belin
Former Vice President Joe Biden is on the record supporting a return to bipartisan government. I have a problem with that.
J.D. Scholten is the Democratic candidate in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. -promoted by Laura Belin
More than 9/11 or the financial crisis of 2008, the coronavirus or COVID-19 has affected every single household in America.
Millions of workers have been laid off. Many are working without paid leave or hazard pay. Hospitals are on the brink of being overwhelmed and understaffed. Parents are at home trying to teach their kids during school closures. Grocery store shelves are barren. And everyone is worried about the health of themselves, their kids, and loved ones; about how they’re going to pay the bills; about where to get a test, about how long this is going to last.
U.S. Representative Steve King told constituents this week he doubts Americans will be able to get “back online by Easter” and urged them to follow medical advice to slow the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
U.S. Senator Joni Ernst told constituents this evening it “would not be prudent” to discourage social distancing by Easter and that Americans should follow the advice of medical professionals.
The U.S. Senate voted on March 18 to approve a second bill responding to the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus (COVID-19), and President Donald Trump signed the legislation later the same day. Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley were part of the 90 to 8 bipartisan majority that approved final passage of the bill. But first, Iowa’s senators supported a Republican amendment to remove mandatory paid sick leave from the bill the U.S. House approved late last week.
The U.S. House has fast-tracked a bill responding to the economic challenges created by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. All 223 Democrats present–including Iowa’s Representatives Abby Finkenauer (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Cindy Axne (IA-03)–voted for the bill shortly before 1:00 am on March 14, joined by 140 Republicans (roll call). U.S. Representative Steve King (IA-04) was one of 40 House Republicans to vote no.
Part of a series catching up on Iowa’s 2020 races for federal offices. Click here for the latest on IA-01 and here for IA-02.
Plenty of successful Iowa politicians have lost their first campaign as a challenger, then defeated the same incumbent two years later. (Tom Harkin and Berkley Bedell are two of the most famous examples.) Rematches occur in a different political context. The challenger has higher name recognition, and the prevailing national atmosphere may favor the party out of power.
In Iowa’s third Congressional district, another kind of rematch is taking shape. U.S. Representative Cindy Axne, who took down an incumbent on her first attempt, will face David Young, who won two U.S. House races before losing to Axne in a difficult year for Republicans nationally.
Ira Lacher reflects on the February 19 six-candidate clash in Las Vegas, which drew the largest television audience yet for a Democratic debate this cycle. -promoted by Laura Belin
“Welcome to the NFL, kid.” — The sarcastic greeting veteran players give to highly touted rookies who are roughed up and even injured in their first pro football contests.
“Welcome to the party, man.” — The sarcastic greeting Joe Biden gave to Mike Bloomberg as they exited the stage after Wednesday’s debate.
Based on Wednesday’s pro wrestling show in Las Vegas, the former New York City mayor is being compared to Ishtar. The 1987 film cost a then-unheard of $40 million and was pilloried as one of the worst disasters in movie history.
