Six-term Representative Steve King made news this week in typically cringe-worthy ways: talking about impeaching the president, getting caught on video mixing it up with a “DREAMer” who approached him.

Meanwhile, King’s Democratic challenger Jim Mowrer launched his first television commercial on August 1. I’ve posted the video and transcript of this 30-second biographical spot after the jump. According to the Mowrer campaign, the ad will run on broadcast television in Des Moines and Sioux City, and on cable in Des Moines, Sioux City, Mason City, and Omaha.

Rarely does a Congressional challenger introduce himself on television before an entrenched incumbent goes up on the air. But then, it’s rare for a first-time candidate like Mowrer to build up a good cash on hand advantage going into the general election.

Any comments about this race are welcome in this thread. As of August 1, the 39 counties in IA-04 contained 123,290 active registered Democrats, 179,745 Republicans, and 171,235 no-party voters.

P.S.- In a rant about “phony Sunday talk shows,” the Washington Post’s in-house conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin chastised news hosts who solicit King as a guest: “The real journalistic sin here is that no one has the nerve to explain that [King] is an outcast and reviled in his own caucus.” U.S. Senator and likely presidential candidate Rand Paul didn’t want to be near King during his conversation with the DREAMers. Later, Paul said he had to step away for a media availability. His body language suggested an urgent need to get away.

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner doesn’t want to impeach President Barack Obama. His plan to sue the president is a gambit to appease Republicans bent on fighting the president’s alleged failure “to faithfully execute the laws.” At this week’s meeting of the House GOP caucus, both Boehner and Greg Walden, head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, urged colleagues not to talk about impeachment, saying such talk only helps Democrats. Today, Boehner assured a roomful of reporters, “We have no plans to impeach the president,” claiming that such speculation was “all a scam started by Democrats at the White House.”

There’s no question Democrats have been hyping the impeachment speculation, to remarkably successful effect. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee took in $2 million over four days from e-mail appeals warning of Republican plans to oust the president.

But it’s a stretch for Boehner to claim Democrats dreamed up the impeachment “scam.” Dave Weigel posted a good overview of Republicans inside and outside Congress calling for impeachment within the past year, and especially within the past month.

Just a few days ago, Iowa’s own Representative Steve King predicted House Republicans will be motivated to launch impeachment proceedings if President Obama uses executive orders to give “amnesty” to undocumented immigrants. After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from those comments, as well as King’s latest op-ed piece on immigration policy (which does not mention impeachment).  

To put it mildly, King and Boehner don’t always see eye to eye on political messaging. With House leadership strongly opposed, I’m skeptical Republicans aligned with King would be able to force a vote on articles of impeachment, let alone pass such a measure. Too many people remember how calls to impeach President Bill Clinton backfired during the 1998 midterm elections. But it’s worth noting that House Republicans proceeded with efforts to remove Clinton despite the verdict voters delivered in 1998. A recent national poll indicated that even as Obama’s approval ratings remain low, two-thirds of Americans oppose impeaching him. The same poll suggested that a majority of Republican respondents favor impeachment.

What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers? Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

P.S. – Great piece by Lynda Waddington on King saying, in effect, that Obama can’t feel true patriotism because “he was not raised with an American experience.”

UPDATE: Added new comments from King below. He isn’t currently pushing for impeachment but thinks the president might want to be impeached because of a narcissistic personality and “messiah complex.”

One of the most surprising Iowa House Republican winners from 2010 now has a Democratic challenger. Altoona City Council member Joe Riding announced yesterday that he will run against State Representative Kim Pearson in the new House district 30, a swing seat covering much of eastern Polk County.  

Last week, a group of conservative Iowa House Republicans finally made good on their promise to introduce articles of impeachment against the four remaining Iowa Supreme Court justices who concurred in the 2009 Varnum v Brien decision on marriage. The impeachment bills won’t make it out of committee, let alone the Iowa House, but there may be some political fallout from the effort.

After the jump I examine the articles of impeachment, future prospects for their backers and recent news related to the 2012 judicial retention elections.

Clerking for a state legislator is a great first job in politics, but here’s a warning to the young and politically involved: sharing your personal views on Facebook can get you fired. Tyler Kingkade has the story at the Iowa State Daily:

Jessica Bruning didn’t think her personal stance on political issues would jeopardize her position as a clerk with Rep. Renee Schulte, R-Linn, in the Iowa legislature. However, after a Facebook post bucked the Republican party’s stance on the impeachment of the state Supreme Court justices, she quickly found herself out of a job.

She had been told to “tone it down” after the State of the Judiciary speech by Chief Justice Mark Cady, where she took part in standing ovations along with Democrats.

During the 2010 election season, Bruning worked for the Branstad-Reynolds campaign but often shared information on Facebook about Justice Not Politics – a bipartisan group formed to advocate retention of the justices. […]

Bruning continued to share articles and information in support of the justices after the elections as House Republicans began talk of impeaching the remaining judges.

But after a Facebook post in January, the next thing Bruning knew she was let go from her position as a clerk. She said she currently cannot go into further details on the event.

Technically, the Iowa House Republican caucus isn’t committed to impeaching the four remaining justices who concurred in the Varnum v Brien ruling on marriage. In fact, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rich “we want to drive procreation” Anderson has said he doubts articles of impeachment would clear his committee. Nevertheless, I’m not surprised that Bruning got fired by criticizing the impeachment drive, especially after she stood up to applaud Chief Justice Cady. His speech wasn’t warmly received by the House Republican caucus.

To me, the most surprising thing about this story is that Bruning was hired as a clerk for Schulte despite having criticized the anti-retention drive during the campaign. To my knowledge, not a single Iowa GOP lawmaker or legislative candidate advocated voting to retain the three Supreme Court justices on the ballot. Speaking to Kingkade,

Bruning said young people are often told throughout their years in school to get involved and voice their opinion, “Then when I post a simple Facebook status, I get fired. They’re conflicting messages.”

That’s the way the cookie crumbles if your Facebook status goes against your political party’s dominant view. If Bruning had been lambasting the justices on social media, or bashing impeachment while clerking for a Democratic state representative, she’d still have a job today.

UPDATE: Schulte disputes Bruning’s account but declined to specify why the clerk was sacked:

Two weeks ago, Schulte gave The Des Moines Register a brief statement about Bruning’s assertion, deferring additional questions to House Republican leadership.

“The short answer is no,” she was not fired for supporting same-sex marriage rights, Schulte told the Register. “Basically she’s an at-will employee. It could be for any reason. It makes me sad that she thinks that that’s why.”

Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady addresses the Iowa legislature this morning in what will surely be the most-watched ever state of the judiciary speech. Iowa Public Television is carrying the live feed at 10 am, and I’ll liveblog after the jump. Cady is the senior justice remaining on the high court, having been appointed by Governor Terry Branstad in 1998. He is also the author of the 2009 Varnum v Brien ruling, which struck down Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act. That decision sparked a successful campaign against retaining Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices Michael Streit and David Baker in November. The four remaining justices chose Cady to serve as chief justice until replacements for Ternus, Streit and Baker have been appointed.

So far 61 people have applied for a position on the Iowa Supreme Court. The current list is here, but more applications may come in by the deadline (January 14). So far applicants include 10 women and 51 men from many different towns and cities of the state. Most are in their 40s or 50s. The few applicants in their 30s include both U.S. attorneys appointed by George W. Bush for Iowa (Matt Whitaker and Matt Dummermuth). One Republican state legislator, Iowa House Judiciary Committee Chair Rich Anderson, has applied as well. The Des Moines Register noted that one applicant, University of Iowa law professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig, submitted a brief in support of same-sex marriage when the Supreme Court was considering the Varnum v Brien case. Another applicant, Michael Keller, has praised that ruling, which allowed him to marry his partner.

State Court Administrator David Boyd told the Des Moines Register that “he was ‘very pleased, and maybe a little surprised’ with the quality and number of applicants, given the intense public scrutiny on the court since the election.” The state judicial nominating commission “welcomes written comments from the public about the qualifications of any of the applicants.” After interviewing the candidates, the judicial nominating commission will send a short list of nine names to Branstad, who will fill the three vacancies.

P.S. This week a report by the National Institute on Money in State Politics summarized the independent expenditures in last year’s retention campaign. Supporters of retaining Ternus, Streit and Baker were vastly outspent by groups seeking to oust the justices.

UPDATE: Liveblog starting now after the jump. Iowa Public TV will rebroadcast the speech at 9:30 pm on Wednesday.

THURSDAY UPDATE: House Judiciary Committee Chair Anderson seems to be closing the door on impeachment.

Rep. Rich Anderson, R-Clarinda, said he personally believes that the justices’ actions in issuing a ruling that in effect legalized same-sex marriage do not meet the standard for impeachment spelled out in the Iowa Constitution: “misdemeanor or malfeasance in office.” The court ruled that an Iowa law limiting marriage to a man and a woman was unconstitutional.

He said his gut reaction is that the yet-to-be-filed bill won’t make it out of his committee, one of the first steps in the legislative process.

“I don’t believe there’s any likelihood of impeachment,” Anderson said.

I’ve posted more reactions to Cady’s speech from state legislators below.  

The Iowa legislature convenes this morning for its 2011 session. Join me after the jump for clips on two of the most contentious issues to be resolved this session: proposed spending cuts and impeachment proceedings against four Iowa Supreme Court justices.

UPDATE: You can listen to opening speeches by Senate President Jack Kibbie, Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, House Speaker Pro Tempore Jeff Kaufmann, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer at the Radio Iowa site.

SECOND UPDATE: Lawmakers issued the official canvass of the 2010 gubernatorial election: Branstad/Reynolds 592,079 votes, Culver/Judge 484,798 votes.

You don’t have to be a “friend and former adviser on three of Bob Vander Plaats’ campaigns” for governor to know what Dan Moore writes in a Des Moines Register guest editorial today. But the assessment packs more of a punch coming from a former close associate:

Bob is obsessed with the gay-marriage issue. He is so obsessed that he would rather see the Iowa judicial system destroyed, instead of pursuing a change in the law within the channels provided (a constitutional amendment).

This post continues below.

Before the November election, advocates for retaining the three Iowa Supreme Court justices on the ballot warned that throwing out the judges over one controversial decision would bring more politics into the judicial arena. The new debate over impeaching the four remaining Supreme Court justices shows that’s exactly what has happened.

In 2009, calls for impeaching the Supreme Court justices were a bridge too far even for Bob Vander Plaats, Iowa’s leading critic of the Varnum v Brien ruling. Now newly-elected Republican State Representatives Tom Shaw, Kim Pearson and Glen Massie are drafting articles of impeachment to introduce during the 2011 legislative session.

So far not one GOP official has spoken out against using a controversial ruling as grounds for criminal proceedings against four judges.

JANUARY 3 UPDATE: Governor-elect Terry Branstad finally spoke out against impeaching the remaining Supreme Court justices. Click the link or scroll to the bottom of this post to read his comments.

President-elect Barack Obama has apparently decided to appoint retiring Republican Congressman Ray LaHood of Illinois as Secretary of Transportation. LaHood was elected to the U.S. House in the 1994 landslide. He decided not to run for re-election this year because “It’s not any fun being in the minority.” (Are you listening, Tom Latham?)

An Illinois blogger writes that LaHood doesn’t have much of a record on transportation issues, although he has voted for more public transit funding and more passenger rail service on Amtrak.

At Grist, Ryan Avent sees three possibilities:

  1. Obama doesn’t intend the DOT secretary to do the heavy lifting on his transportation policies,

  2. Obama doesn’t really care about transportation, and

  3. It isn’t true.

But I agree with the reader who suggested a fourth possibility:

4) Obama knows this guy personally, finds him to be a trustworthy sort.  

I am going to hope for number 4 and that Obama will have LaHood implement the transportation priorities Obama and Biden believe in. Expanding passenger rail is one of the biggies.

Incidentally, LaHood was one of the leaders of the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton. Let’s hope he won’t try to undermine Obama’s presidency as well.

Regarding Obama’s choice of Senator Ken Salazar for Secretary of Interior, some environmental groups are concerned. He’s far from the environmental champion they were hoping for in Congressman Raul Grijalva. Kate Sheppard has more on the environmental community’s mixed feelings on Salazar at Grist.

However, the Sierra Club praised Salazar, as well as Tom Vilsack, in this press release.

In this Daily Kos diary, Kula 2316 provides more reaction to Obama’s choice of Vilsack for Secretary of Agriculture.

Share any relevant thoughts in the comments.

WITNESS! Vincent Bugliosi, former LA prosecutor, pulling no punches in accusing the administration of murder. “I am fully aware that the charge I have just made is a very serious one, but let me just say that at this stage in my career, I don't have time for fanciful reveries. I'd never in a million years would propose a murder prosecution of Bush administration officials if I didn't believe there was more than enough evidence to convict them and that I was standing on strong legal ground.”

BEHOLD! House Democrats shamed by an old public servant who, if they had half this guy's balls and refreshing disrespect for politesse in their own due diligence and oversight in the last two years, much less the last eight, we wouldn't even be talking about poll numbers in the presidential race right now and McCain would be shopping for a “Sunset Condo.” 

MARVEL! At Steve King (SS-Iowa) professing to almost suffering an “aneurysm” after being told, finally, by anyone, how his linear-thinking sociopathic rationalizations and hamfisted justifications of the worst presidential administration in history are “wrong” in no uncertain terms.

THE BIGGEST HIT OF THE SUMMER! NOW PLAYING ON A YOUTUBE NEAR YOU! 

Let's say that you live in a small, prosperous Midwestern town, a real old-fashioned place right out of Leave It To Beaver or Mayberry, RFD.  You have two teen-aged boys.  The first, let's call him Bill, is whip-smart, ambitious but a bit reckless, prone to run-ins with the law and goes through cheerleaders like most boys go through a pack of M&M's.  The second, his name is George, is not too bright, a “C” student but he's a real straight arrow, dates a frumpy National Merit Scholar and always comes home by curfew.

So, let's say and why not, that one night the cops pull Bill over in his '68 Camaro SS — after a high speed chase — only to find the kid reclined in the front seat swilling Coors Light while getting a hummer from the Prom Queen.  

Chaos ensues.  It is a major community crisis.  Your family, model citizens in the town is publicly shamed.  After several tormented months, an unconscionable amount of money spent on expensive lawyers to maneuver Bill out of a felony charge things finally settle back down.  Bill is bundled off to Harvard, his scholarships still in place.  The family takes a deep breath of relief.