Category: Living in Society

Editor’s Note: On Saturday, May 10, 2025 I was inducted into the Johnson County Democrats Hall of Fame. These are my remarks, prepared for delivery.

Thank you for the warm welcome into the Johnson County Democrats Hall of Fame. This recognition means a lot.

I queried myself using artificial intelligence and the result came back: “Paul Deaton is a long-time Democratic activist and commentator based in Johnson County, Iowa.” I do comment on things. People take issue with some of my comments. In particular, Jeff Kaufmann used to contact me when I wrote about him on Blog for Iowa. After a couple of times, I explained to the Cedar County Republican he was a public figure now and subject to criticism. That was the end of that.

For the rest of my time, I have a few stories.

My father got me interested in politics. During the 1960 election, his union asked him to organize our neighborhood for John F. Kennedy. We moved there the previous year, and didn’t know many people. He did what he knew best and went to his basement workshop to get out his drafting tools. He drew a prototype city block. When he was satisfied with it, he took it to the union hall where they mimeographed copies using that stinky purple ink that was common back in the day. He introduced himself to every person on our block and continued until he had everyone’s information handwritten on his map. While Richard Nixon won Iowa that year, JFK won the general that was enough for our family to celebrate.

During the 1964 election I had a newspaper route. Each week I took the city bus to downtown Davenport to pay my bill. Our family was for Lyndon Johnson. I noticed there were campaign buttons that said “LBJ for the USA” on them. One Saturday after paying my bill, I went to the Democratic Headquarters and asked for one. They said no, you must do something to get one of those. Undeterred, we negotiated and agreed I would stuff envelopes, then they would give me a button. Thusly, I worked on my first political campaign. When LBJ won in a landslide, I just figured Democrats would prevail the same way in every election thereafter.

I was not a fan of Jim Leach. After his House Banking Committee convened Whitewater Hearings in 1995, I was outraged after watching the proceedings on television. The more I watched, the madder I got. Leach was the worst for overseeing that sham inquiry.

When I reactivated in politics during the 2004 election, I felt Leach had to go. In 2006, Dave Loebsack announced for Congress and I wanted to help. One night a week I drove from work in Cedar Rapids to Iowa City to do whatever was needed to help Dave win. Typically, Tyler Wilson was there alone when I arrived in the dimly lit office.

I’d ask, “What can I do to help?” Wilson would point at a tall stack of paperwork and say, “These people need to be called.” I called until it became too late to call any longer. I learned from these phone calls the worm was turning on Leach. I didn’t need to do any convincing. Most people to whom I spoke felt like I did and some were switching their vote from Leach to Loebsack. As we all know, Dave won the election. It was a big deal.

During Loebsack’s first campaign I got involved with something called “Rapid Response.” Trish Nelson and Ellen Ballas recruited me to join them. They are here tonight. Coming out of the Howard Dean campaign, the idea was to read the news and quickly respond to Republicans using letters to the editor as our medium. We latched onto an issue which Ellen dubbed “faux headbands.” These were made of a single feather and a headband, what white people conjured as representing “Indian.” We wrote letter after letter about Jim Leach’s use of faux headbands in district parades. Clearly, we embarrassed Leach into stopping his racist practice and that was our goal all along. His campaign responded to our relentless barrage of letters: “In respect to your concerns, we decided not to distribute them in the future.” Can you trust Republicans? Our friend Dave Bradley recounted a story about the 2006 Wilton parade at the end of summer.

Leach had said they would no longer hand them out, but they did. They were behind us in the parade, so we had no idea what they were doing. When we got back to the staging area, I walked a block or two to see if there were any headbands. I found three right away, picked them up, and returned to help take our float down.

Just then the Republican float rolled into the staging area. They saw me with my feathers and scattered like chickens in a thunderstorm. Leach, State Senator Jim Hahn, Jeff Kaufmann and all the others running like they had seen a ghost. One guy saying he was going to beat the hell out of me, but he was running away. What a memory.

One last story.

The town of Stanwood, population 673, was in our district in 2012. If you’ve never been there, it has a post office, a library, a school, a manufactured home transporter, a pallet supply company, and Ditto’s Family Restaurant. If you are a doomsday prepper you would fit right in as some houses had firewood stacked to the second story. If you are into the Confederate flag, one was displayed in Stanwood, which no one seemed to mind. It was a picture of a newly emerging America. It was and likely still is a rough place like so many small Iowa cities.

When the next person on my walk list was an octogenarian Democrat I felt we would have a good conversation. I knocked on the door and the voter rushed out on the porch and without acknowledging me said, “Did you see what Obama just did?” No, I hadn’t. He told a lengthy tale of woe before I determined he must have been watching FOX News or listening to Rush Limbaugh. I don’t recall what upset him, yet I assured him what he heard was not true. The moral of the story is right wing media was affecting voters in a way I couldn’t counter at the door. I realized then how important media reform was to our political movement. Much more important than door knocking friendly neighborhoods.

Thanks again for the recognition. I am slowing down a bit these days yet will always be looking for something useful to do.

The advertisement read, “On May 1, 2025, we will come together to raise our voices in support of our quality public schools.” The event was volunteer-organized for the National Education Association.

Some students and adults showed up outside the high school in Solon, Iowa on a rainy Thursday morning.

Meanwhile, from Washington, D.C. U.S. Senator Chris Murphy posted the following:

Everything helps.

The U.S. president looked like an old man struggling to descend the steps outside Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome Saturday morning. He leaned his head over and looked down, watching each footstep like a person who needed assistance on the stairs leading to Saint Peter’s Square where the requiem Mass for Pope Francis would be celebrated.

It seems clear at the end of week fourteen Trump is not in charge of the government. If there is a power player in the administration, it is Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Budget and Management. Vought also played a primary role in creating Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, also known as Project 2025. It is as if they are implementing Project 2025 policies page by page.

It is also clear the administration is in a hurry to gather all power it can in the executive branch of government, under the president specifically. Some describe this as conformance with the unitary executive theory, according to which the president has sole authority over the executive branch of government. In our government today, the legislative and judicial branches continue to have a role to play, including funding the administration and its agencies, and adjudicating what is out of bounds. The president signs executive order after executive order pushing our form of democracy toward the guardrails designed by the founders. No one knows if the guardrails will hold. Some of us have faith.

The Congress returns from Easter recess today. If their work seems superficial in the coming days, the more consequential work of shaping the administration will continue behind the scenes in the lead up to the budget reconciliation vote expected in late May. With the closely divided House, there will be tremendous pressure for Republicans to hold to a conservative budget, one that formalizes some of the president’s executive orders. Everyone knows all it will take is a few Republican House members to vote no to scuttle the conservative dreamscape of government. Democrats cannot afford to let the reconciliation bill pass without a fight.

The playing field is prepared, the players are known. While Democrats are playing defense, they must stick together and find a few Republicans to join them. This alone makes it worth contacting our members of Congress to let them know that the power and money grab by the well to do will not stand.

Why Trump’s pattern of purging our highest-performing military officers is dangerous by Sen. Tammy Duckworth.

“Our standards will be high, uncompromising and clear.” – Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s Message to the Force, January 25, 2025

President Donald Trump’s pick for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Lt. Gen. Dan Caine (retired), possesses an extraordinary record of service—in Iraq, in special access programs and in the National Guard. There is no question of his capacity to lead, devotion to our country, character, courage or competence.

But those aren’t the qualifications required by law to be the senior-most military officer in our Armed Forces. Federal law requires the chairman to be active duty and have served in any of three senior roles: vice chairman, service chief (except the Coast Guard) or commander of a combatant command. Caine fails to meet one of these.

The president can waive most of the qualifications if he determines it is in our “national interest.” But the only justification that President Trump has stated for waiving these legal standards in this instance is that he remembers Caine stating he “loved” Trump, would “kill” for Trump and that Caine proudly donned a MAGA hat which—as Trump gushed—would be a violation of federal law.

Strangely, Caine has categorically denied that he ever did any of those things, which means either Caine lied—under oath—or that he told the truth and Trump has no justification.

To President Trump, the “national interest” appears to mean personal loyalty.

The nomination of Caine is just the latest example in a dangerous pattern of President Trump purging—in multiple reckless and sudden bursts—the military of its highest-performing general officers from mission-critical roles. Why? Because they promised loyalty to the Constitution instead of to him? These firings have nothing to do with upholding high standards at all they are about prioritizing fealty over qualifications and putting our national security at risk in the process.

Please click here to read the rest of this important opinion piece.