Iowa

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Link fixed.

I did not see this coming! I thought for sure that Reynolds would look at how abortion restrictions impacted Republicans in other States and realize the only reason Iowa avoided the same setbacks was because abortion wasn't on the ballot.

Republicans don't seem to care about electability anymore. Spooky.

Poor white people, they have it so hard. 🙄

“Despite billions of dollars in surplus, the governor and Republican legislative majorities responsible for your tax dollars have for years undervalued their own financial management team that prepares the material that we review for required audits,” he said. “The bottom line is we cannot audit what we have not been provided.”

Fiscal responsibility is when you store all your surpluses under your mattress

It was 92 years ago today that a terrible fire took place in the Iowa town of Spencer. It didn't help that the weather was hot even for an Iowa summer, according to Jeff Stein and the Iowa Almanac. The temperature in Spencer in northwest Iowa topped off at 97°. The lack of recent rain made things dry, as well.

The story goes that there was a large fireworks display in the front window of Bjornstad's Drugstore at the corner of Fourth and Main, downtown. A little boy took an interest in the display, which was not uncommon. What happened next was quite uncommon.

Let's hope we don't get a rerun...

Iowa U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican, was the only of Iowa’s current congressional delegation to vote for the infrastructure bill. Rep. Cindy Axne, a Democrat who lost re-election in 2022, also voted for it.

Well yeah, everyone knows the internet makes you trans. Not surprising the vast majority of Republicans opposed this. Good on Grassley for going against the grain, I guess.

The court maintained the injunction in a in a 3-3 split vote that automatically upheld the district court ruling. Konfrst said the court’s verdict was “good news,” but said Democrats know it will be “short lived.”

FTA -

While not all Catholic, Iowa’s political leadership is comprised of deeply conservative Christians, solicitous of their fundamentalist base. Like Ireland’s leadership decades ago, they are consumed by their own anxieties over sex and sexuality. Here is the painful review of their recent efforts:

In March 2022, the state enacted a law prohibiting transgender girls from playing on female sports teams in schools.

In January of this year, Reynolds and her allies in the legislature pushed through a sweeping bill that directs significant amounts of state funds to private (mostly Christian) schools.

In March, the GOP trifecta banned gender-affirming care for minors and mandated that Iowans of any age use school bathrooms or other facilities matching their "biological sex," their gender assigned at birth.

The same month, Republican lawmakers attacked diversity and inclusion initiatives at Iowa's state universities in response to the right-wing perception that universities are dangerous, “woke” outposts in a conservative land. An appropriations bill approved later imposed a hiring freeze for such programs at universities.

In May, Reynolds signed a law prohibiting any instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity from grades K-6, and banning school library or classroom materials that contain "descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act."

It's also worth noting that the time period in Ireland that the article discussed was also the period when the Irish Republican Army was most active. If they're right and we can look at history to predict where Iowa is going...

Iowa's senior senator said he isn't in favor of Congress pursuing additional ethics rules for the U.S. Supreme Court and pushed back on a report that Justice Sam Alito had traveled with a wealthy donor whose business later came before the court.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a former chair of the Senate judiciary committee, told reporters he believed lawmakers shouldn't enforce further regulations on the court until its new internal guidelines can be evaluated.

"I am not in favor of legislation until we know that what the Supreme Court has done on their own is enough," Grassley said.

In March, the court quietly revised its ethics code to require a more complete disclosure of trips and gifts received by the justices, though some still remain exempt from reporting.

The changes came amid increased scrutiny on the court's relationship with wealthy donors and friends — with the nonprofit news outlet ProPublica reporting about vacations and gifts received by Justice Clarence Thomas and now Alito.

Grassley questioned whether Congress should enforce such changes on the court.

"I don't even know whether it's appropriate for us to pass legislation in this area," he said. "It probably is. But the extent to which we accept the judicial branch as a separate branch of government, the extent to which it would be appropriate to do that, that's kind of immaterial at this point."

The court "knew there's a problem, they've rewritten the rules and that's it," Grassley added. And he brushed aside the latest reporting on Alito, arguing his "travel was before his friend had business before the courts."

"So the inference that he's influenced by who he might have a relationship with can't apply in this place because it was before there was any business before the Supreme Court."

Alito did not recuse himself from a series of cases involving his fellow vacationer Paul Singer, ProPublica reported. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Alito disputed the report, arguing he had "no obligation to recuse" in any of the cases.

Several ethics law experts who spoke to ProPublica said it appeared that Alito had violated a post-Watergate federal law requiring disclosure by public officials of private jet flights, as well as his stay at a commercial lodge.

"Trees planted in the wake of climate disaster struggling to adapt to climate change"

Vibes

Just in case you though the Iowa Supreme Court was good.

First Post Iowa?

I have a photography drone and I have done most of the obvious places, so now I am looking for some that are less obvious. Pl

It's so interesting watching Republicans overreach on abortion over and over, despite the fact that they don't even have electoral support for it. Ideological commitment might explain it, but I can't help be draw this back to materialistic explanations.

Abortion slows population growth, which weighs on the labor market and necessitates immigration for essential workers. Abortion liberates women, allowing them to control their own bodies and lives. Abortion especially liberates the poor, allowing them to control their own family planning and not have children they can't afford. All of these things weigh on the economy, which needs an endless supply of desperate workers for profitability.

Republicans have so many reasons to oppose abortion that ideology and electability is almost irrelevant.

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