Category: Living in Society

Politics mostly social commentary.

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Living in Society

Women To Read And Follow

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

According to the website Wordsrated, the average American adult reads five books per year. 51.6 percent of Americans don’t finish a single book in a year. Therefore, I am pretty optimistic when I say we should be reading these eight female authors. Don’t get me wrong. Men can be fine writers. It’s just that these women are particularly relevant to this moment in history when authoritarianism is knocking at American’s door.

Jane Mayer If you read only one book this year, make it Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. From the dust jacket: “…a network of exceedingly wealthy people with extreme libertarian views bankrolled a systemic, step-by-step plan to alter the American political system.”

Nancy MacLean Ever hear of James McGill Buchanan? Maybe not but you should learn about his influence in altering the rules of democratic governance. MacLean tells this story in Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.

Naomi Oreskes Beginning with Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Oreskes and co-author Erik M. Conway analyzed issues related to advertising and deceiving the public for private gain. Their latest book, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market is timely and relevant. Oreskes also wrote Why Trust Science?

Alice Miranda Ollstein Ollstein is a health care reporter for POLITICO, covering Capitol Hill. Her beat includes women’s reproductive rights and she is at the top of the game in covering the issue. Follow her here.

Anne Nelson Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. From the dust jacket: “This chilling story of the covert group masterminding the radical right’s ongoing assault on America’s airwaves, schools, environment, and, ultimately, its democracy.”

Dahlia Lithwick Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America is the story of women lawyers from around the country, independently of each other, fighting the good fight to hold the line as Trump, McConnell, and the Republican party did everything in their power to remake the judiciary in their own conservative image.

Barbara McQuade Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America, comes at a perfect time for this presidential election year. It is relevant, engaging, and necessary in its discussion of misinformation and disinformation in American society. It is part explainer and part map for addressing these issues. You’ll want to read this one straight through.

Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin One of the co-founders of Indivisible, McLaughlin is a former New York Attorney (a federal court securities fraud litigator) who is covering the Trump trials and other relevant legal news from her home in Southern California. A main activity is her daily 30-minute YouTube broadcast called #ResistanceLive. Find it here. Not only does she report and interpret the news from a progressive viewpoint, she is funny, energetic, and intelligent. She encourages viewers to get involved with the 2024 election.

Please enter a comment with authors you believe progressives should be reading. You may be tempted to read some male authors and that’s fine… after you read these women.

To get involved with the Iowa Democratic Party, click here.

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Living in Society

Dream Big, Get To Work

Is today a once in a lifetime chance to remake the nation? I know one thing. Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin is right, Democrats need to dream big and get to work. What does that mean?

Iowa Democrats cannot resign themselves to the idea Iowa is a red state, or that Republican control of state government is inevitable. Republicans are in charge now and they haven’t always been. They will unlikely always be. The dream for Democrats is to make substantial progress toward retaking control of our government, culminating with voting Governor Kim Reynolds out of office in 2026. While we are at it, we could get rid of Attorney General Brenna Bird and other Republican statewide elected officials. I’m laying that marker down. Democrats in control after the 2026 general election.

What does “get to work” mean? Accept that elections matter and regardless of what small part we play in them, do more than simply vote. There are plenty of ways to get involved in campaigns, beginning with talking to reluctant voters in your family and contacting the local Democratic Party to volunteer.

I expressed my concerns about conventional campaigning last August. This post is not about that. This post is about a special election this week to the Alabama state legislature where Democrat Marilyn Lands won by 28 points in a district that voted for Trump in 2020. Lands made abortion rights and access to in vitro fertilization major themes of her campaign. She serves as an example that flipping a red district is possible.

Can we “remake the nation into a radically more just and equitable one from top to bottom,” as McLaughlin suggested? This may be our defining moment, yet only if we can recognize the hope and possibility it presents. Only if we roll up our sleeves and get to work.

I have faith the people of Iowa will rise up and reject Republican posturing to do what is right for Iowa and the nation. Winning is possible if we dream big and get to work.

Here is a link to the Iowa Democratic Party to get involved today.

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Living in Society

20 Influential Books

Since I threw in with a bunch of readers, artists, photographers, and writers on social media, I’m learning a lot about being “social” in that context. Mainly, we have to interact or what’s the point? I also try to say positive things when I do comment about a piece of writing, painting, photograph or whatnot.

There are games. One of them was to post as follows:

The challenge is to choose 20 books that greatly influenced you. One book per day, for 20 consecutive days. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. (Unless you ask…)

Recurring meme on Threads. March 16, 2024.

I’m going to try this and see if it yields engagement. Positive engagement is what social media is all about. NOT in order of importance, but in the order I posted them:

  • Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow.
  • The White Album by Joan Didion.
  • The Politics of History by Howard Zinn.
  • Spring and All by William Carlos Williams.
  • A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.
  • The Actualist Anthology edited by Morty Sklar and Darrell Gray.
  • Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker.
  • The Photographer’s Eye by John Szarkowski.
  • The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois.
  • Dubliners by James Joyce.
  • Adventures: Rhymes and Designs by Vachel Lindsay.
  • Complete Poems by Carl Sandburg.
  • Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective by New York Museum of Modern Art.
  • The End of the World as We Know It by Donald Kaul.
  • An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler.
  • The Interpretation of Cultures by Clifford Geertz.
  • Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor.
  • The Assault on Reason by Al Gore.
  • What Is Cinema? by Andre Bazin.
  • I Seem To Be A Verb by R. Buckminster Fuller, et. al.

Editor’s Note: I posted through the 13th photo and this project is something of a fizzle. Threads views began minimally and decreased from there. I will finish out the series, but won’t try it again.

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Living in Society

Weekly Journal 2024-03-24

First Starbucks purchase in many years.

Last week was a time of planning, events, and appointments. Because I had fasting labs before blood work on Thursday, I had a headache after the appointment. By the time I arrived at a local grocer and bought Starbucks at their in-store kiosk it was 9:22 a.m. That’s the longest I’ve gone without morning coffee in years.

Coffee cost $2.81 for a tall, which with tip came to $4. Expensive, yet I had to have it… immediately. No typical pleasantries discussed at Starbucks, things like unionization, Palestine, Ukraine, approach to supply chain management, workers’ rights, human rights, political activities, anti-social finance, tax conduct, palm oil sourcing, factory farming, or animal rights. Just coffee, any coffee. I was feeling better after getting groceries and driving home.

Rural Political Gathering

Also on Thursday, I attended a meet up at Shuey’s Restaurant and Lounge in Shueyville. It was one of a series of informal political happy hours held throughout the county. This one had a number of public office-holders and candidates, including the mayor of Shueyville, the county sheriff, and one county supervisor. In fact, folks up for election and their entourages outnumbered us locals.

The reason I went was to meet our state senate candidate Ed Chabal, promote an event we seek to hold in the City of Solon before the primary election, and get caught up with friends and contacts. I had not been to the venue previously and found it modern and perfect for a gathering of this sort. I believe they recently remodeled after a fire.

In Johnson County the primary for supervisor is usually more important than the fall general election. There are five Democratic candidates for three supervisor positions this cycle with incumbents Rod Sullivan, Royceann Porter, and Lisa Green-Douglass facing newcomers Mandi Remington and Bob Conrad. Green-Douglass and Remington were present at the event. I keep hearing echoes of problems with the group dynamic at supervisor meetings, yet haven’t paid enough attention to what’s going on.

There was an action initiated by some elected officials for the county central committee to censure the county attorney for following the law in the prosecution of some protesters. That went nowhere, except to make a kerfuffle. However, the bigger issue, one on which I believe the primary should be decided, is about building a new jail.

Johnson County has needed a new jail for a long time. The current jail opened in 1981 with a 46-inmate capacity. With doubling up prisoners, capacity is 92. We have more prisoners than space, and spend more in housing excess prisoners in other county jails than it would cost to build a new jail. With jail diversion programs and other initiatives between the county attorney and sheriff, the overall jail population reduced substantially. The condition of the jail is not what is needed.

In this you have the rift on how county funds should be spent. There are two supervisors who seem likely to oppose any initiatives by the sheriff. If the election yields a third… well, that would be that regarding a new jail. The supervisor race is still germinating in the primordial soup from which campaigns will emerge. Stay tuned.

Good Health

Over the weekend it began sinking in that my glucose level and LDL cholesterol number are within normal range. That’s the first time since I began seeing a practitioner for my condition. My A1C remains below seven, so that’s good, too. Diet and exercise is helping prevent diabetes in my case. Aging is inescapable and we do the best we can.

Check in tables at the county convention.

County Convention

The county convention was held at City High, an old, well-maintained school which I don’t recall previously visiting. Democrats are getting better at conventions as this one finished up before 2 p.m., platform and all.

There continue to be a number of old-timers in attendance. At the same time there are many younger faces. I had not planned on doing so, yet I signed up to be a delegate to the District and State conventions. The District convention is just across the lakes from me, and my spouse can visit family in Des Moines while I am at the convention there. We fell one short of the allocated number of delegates to these conventions so I’m glad I volunteered.

This week is Good Friday and my potatoes are cut and cured. There will be exercise involved with planting them: more than I am used to experiencing. Make it a great week!

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Reviews

Book Review: Attack From Within

We need information that will help us cope with the 2024 political campaigns and facilitate Democratic wins. Barbara McQuade’s new book has the potential to do that.

McQuade is a law school professor and legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. A former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, she was appointed the first female in that position by President Obama. She possesses legal bona fides. She also co-hosts a podcast called Sisters In Law.

She is one of several combination authors/lawyers/talking heads/podcasters I follow. Her new book, Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America, comes at a perfect time for this presidential election year. It is relevant, engaging, and necessary. What is it about?

In part, the book is an explainer. McQuade pulls commonly known information from the media ecosphere and relates it to the concept of disinformation, demonstrating the potential and real consequences for American Democracy. She presents a coherent narrative that includes how disinformers gain power, disinformation tactics, why disinformation works, the danger of emerging technologies, and more. For those parts of the book alone it is worth reading.

What I found most engaging was the chapter “We Alone Can Fix It: Proposed Solutions.” Dealing with disinformation and misinformation can be daunting. McQuade compares this task to the moon shot during the Kennedy administration and wrote:

The tandem threats of authoritarianism and disinformation can seem overwhelming, but we as a nation have solved big problems before. The stakes for democracy are simply too high to ignore them or surrender to despair. Unless we take action, democracy in the Unites States seems destined to fail, and our sovereignty as citizens will perish with it.

Attack From Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America by Barbara McQuade, page 249.

In this chapter, McQuade turns from describing the problems with disinformation to potential solutions. Free speech protections are not absolute in the United States, she said. We should be seeking regulatory solutions to misinformation and disinformation rather than simply banning content. She asserted this can be done without implicating censorship concerns. That may seem like a difficult needle to thread, yet it is the approach taken by other western governments like Germany and the European Union.

Another idea is related to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. I have frequently bemoaned loss of enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine under President Reagan, yet there may be a different solution. “Making online media companies legally responsible for the content on their platforms would force them to remove posts that endanger the public,” McQuade wrote. This issue is at the heart of the Supreme Court case Murthy v. Missouri for which the high court heard oral arguments on March 18. This approach is not without problems. A discussion is needed to discover a way to balance stripping some protections from legal liability while continuing to make reforms in how online content is regulated. It doesn’t have to be a free-for-all. My sense is the high court will decide this case on narrow grounds and throw it to the legislative branch of government to be addressed. The days of having discussions like these at the Supreme Court, as was done in deciding Roe v. Wade, are over with the Roberts Court.

My advice? Secure a copy of the book, by buying it or asking your public library to get a copy, and read it. I’m missing some things in a short book review, but believe me, you are going to want it all from Barbara McQuade.

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Living in Society

Driveway Politics

Rural Polling Place

I’m supposed to be taking it easy. When I retired during the coronavirus pandemic I knew outside activities would wind down as I age. I still care about our politics, yet in a different way from before the pandemic.

It began April 28, 2020 when I gave up a part-time job at the home, farm, and auto supply store. I also left work at a friend’s farm, and at the orchard. I gave up my veterans group and all my volunteer board memberships. The only activities remaining are this blog (which I’ll keep for now), writing letters to the editors of newspapers, and politics. I’d prefer to dump politics as an active concern, yet it doesn’t seem possible because it runs in my blood.

My cohort of local political activists is diminished through deaths, infirmities, aging, and people moving away. I am reluctant to engage my nonagenarian friends who have been mainstays in campaigns. Octogenarians get similar consideration. Younger people moving into our precinct lean conservative. Republican candidates won federal and statewide campaigns here beginning in 2016. Democratic politics as I have been practicing it since 1987 is fading away.

I continue to do things.

A friend returned from a trip to Thailand and we had a driveway conversation about it. We first worked together on a political campaign in 2004, so I’ve known them 20 years. We looked at photos and videos on a handheld device. One video had them swimming in a river with a five-year-old elephant. It was good to catch up.

The reason for the reunion was to collect signatures on an Iowa House candidate’s nominating petition. We have been working together so long, we speak to each other in shorthand about politics. Between us, on short notice, we collected 11 signatures. The candidate had more than the 50 required by the Secretary of State.

Later that day, another friend stopped by to pick up the petitions and deliver them to the candidate. We had a long conversation in the driveway. I know his father and the three of us all worked on Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. Those were heady times. I wrote a post about this in 2008. We talked about the House District and who we might pull in to work on the campaign. This cycle, I plan to be a worker bee, not an organizer. I think people have heard just about enough from me. There is interest in doing better in the new district.

Driveway conversations don’t occur in a vacuum. If anything, they generate more interest and activities. Now that the filing deadline for state and federal offices passed, there is a sense the campaign has begun. It truly has and that means doing more things. For example, this week there was an informal political meet up in our House District and today is the county convention. This was a lot more talking than I have done in a very long time. Partly I welcome it. Partly, I am wary of it. The reasons are complicated.

The 2020 campaign was a bitch because of the coronavirus. The Sunday before the general election a neighbor held an event for Rita Hart who was running for the Congressional seat Dave Loebsack left open after retirement. She was standing right next to me and I didn’t recognize her. We were both wearing face masks. As we talked, it didn’t occur to me she was the candidate. That was one more wacky thing during the coronavirus campaign. The pandemic changed campaign operations dramatically. In a sense, there is no going back to the pre-pandemic methods. Hart lost in a close race.

It is early in the 2024 campaign, so we’ll see how Democrats roll. Today’s county convention should be a bellwether. As long as I don’t get too far from our driveway, I keep my wits about me. When I do leave for an in real life event, my only imperative is to recruit volunteers so we stand a chance to turn Republicans out of office in our district and beyond. Also, I continue to hear the siren song of Democratic politics.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

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Living in Society

Going for a Check Up

Face masks in the medicine cabinet.

Because the university bought the hospital system in town, I had to drive to West Branch for my six month check up. My practitioner quit after the acquisition was announced and hasn’t been replaced.

The positive news is the university plans to maintain the clinic close to me once the transition is finished. It was news on the day of my appointment the consultant hired to manage the transition from private hospital system to being part of the university also resigned to take a big job in Missouri. Staff at the clinic knew all about this when I mentioned it.

I made a list of discussion topics for the practitioner, including diabetes, reviewing medications and vitamins, blood pressure, weight, and vaccinations. I got my last pneumonia vaccine booster and made a list of four things to work on: less salt, less butter, add ten minutes onto my daily trail walk, and portion control while eating. In Iowa I’ve found plenty of time to have a meaningful discussion with practitioners I see. The longest part of the conversation was about blood pressure.

We talked five or ten minutes about blood pressure. What stands out is the standard is less than 120/80 mmHg. There is talk among the medical profession that the standard should be even lower. I would cynically note that if it were, it would increase the number of diagnoses of hypertension and thereby increase prescription drug sales considerably. I told the practitioner there must be a political aspect to a potential change in standards. He professionally refrained from commenting.

In late afternoon, the nurse who gave me my vaccination and drew blood phoned. I was at a political event in the next town over from home, so I picked up and went to a quieter corner of the room. I had read the lab results in my patient portal before leaving for the event. The results indicated everything looked good, they said, and my behavior regarding exercise and diet was working to hold off advancement of diabetes. It was a good call to receive.

Hopefully my next appointment will be back in the regular clinic. Staying on top of vaccinations and medical conditions is an important aspect of aging in America.

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Living in Society

Open Border Blarney

Image of 5th Century Bishop of Ireland.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to those who celebrate! It is hard to celebrate anything these days with all the Republican fear-mongering. In any case, Saint Patrick’s efforts to convert the Pagan Irish does not rank very highly in the life of this descendant of people who lived in North America since before the United States was a thing.

Republicans cannot help themselves about the border and immigration. After President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address, Governor Kim Reynolds released a statement that included, “Three years of Joe Biden has led to an open border…” among other things. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks says in a recent social media advertisement, “The crisis at our southern border poses a serious threat to our national security.” My Republican State Senator Dawn Driscoll gave the border a mention in her most recent newsletter, saying, “Every state is a border state now.” She explained,

Immigration reform remains a critical issue that concerns many across our nation, highlighting the urgent need for effective solutions to address the challenges at our borders. These challenges have led to increased human trafficking, the spread of illegal drugs, and other crimes, affecting communities far beyond those directly on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Driscoll Dispatch by Senator Dawn Driscoll, March 8, 2024.

Scary. Driscoll is not as scary as my State Representative Brad Sherman who was working on legislation titled, “A Resolution affirming the state of Iowa’s support for the state of Texas and condemning the federal government’s immigration policies.” What a waste of time.

To counter Republican claims, the U.S. Congress, in which most responsibility for immigration reform lies, has done little to address it since the Reagan era. They recently negotiated a bipartisan immigration reform bill that was rejected out of hand by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Which is it? Open border, or lack of Republican political will to do something meaningful about it? Biden clearly pushed the Congress to do something about the southern border, and I’d wager he is not done.†

Art Cullen pointed out in his Feb. 12, 2019 column in the Washington Post, “Here in Storm Lake, Iowa, where the population is about 15,000 and unemployment is under 2 percent, Asians and Africans and Latinos are our lifeline. The only threat they pose to us is if they weren’t here.” Rural Iowa needs immigrants, he said.

The point of Republicans like Governor Reynolds is that immigrants are scary, not that we should do anything about the so-called “open border.” The duplicitous, political nature of Republican positioning is enough to make a person’s head spin. I may have to find a glass of green beer today and have some me time. Even so, I doubt that will make them stop.

We need to vote Republicans out of office at every level. Not only to work on real solutions to the immigration problem, but for everything else they do to stir up irrational fear before the November election. In this, I may have discovered why Americans favor an alcoholic drink on Saint Patrick’s Day.

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Living in Society

In Defense of Katie Porter

Katie Porter in an Aug. 10, 2020 advertisement Photo Credit – Progress Iowa

I was pulling for Barbara Lee to win the March 5 California primary to replace the late U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. I followed Lee diligently and it looked like she had a chance. She was doing the work. At the same time, I know how to read polls and saw Democrat Adam Schiff was the clear leader with Republican Steve Garvey and Democrat Katie Porter behind. Lee didn’t make the top three, although she would have been a great U.S. Senator.

In California, all candidates for voter-nominated offices are listed on one ballot and only the top two vote-getters in the primary election – regardless of party preference – move on to the general election, according to the California Secretary of State.

Team Schiff was accused of sneaky tricks during the campaign. As the Washington Post put it, “Rep. Adam Schiff and his allies are spending $11 million in the all-party primary to try to elevate a GOP candidate and box out Rep. Katie Porter from the general election.” The premise was Garvey would be easier for Schiff to beat in the general election. Is this illegal? No. Katie Porter did not care for it one bit, calling the practice “cynical.” She followed in suit, spending half a million dollars to promote another Republican candidate, but it was too little, too late.

Schiff and Garvey advanced to the general election.

Barbara Lee acknowledged the impact of money being spent in this campaign and made multiple statements to the press on election day, saying we need public elections to take the money out of politics. She then skipped her campaign watch party, boarded a plane, and flew to Washington, D.C. to get back to work. We are fortunate to have people like Lee in the Congress.

Katie Porter made a big splash after the votes were counted. Her remarks to supporters are worth watching:

This is the Katie Porter Iowans have come to know. What people picked up on was her later statement about “(the) onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig this election.” When she suggested the election was rigged, some felt she had gone full MAGA the way Trumpies denied the results of the 2020 election for president. A media brouhaha ensued. Poppycock, I say!

Katie Porter would agree with Barbara Lee, and most progressives, we need to get special interest money out of politics. Indirectly, that was her point. Media personalities never miss an opportunity to tear down progressives and the “rigged” comment was their impetus to pile on. Porter seems likely to finish her Congressional term and after that, who knows. If she has the smarts and commitment I believe she does, we haven’t heard the last from Katie Porter.

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Living in Society

Let’s Meet the Candidates

Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels.com

The field of candidates for federal and state offices is shaping up after the Friday, March 15, filing deadline. Once the filings are known, it’s off we go to November! It is an exciting time for those interested in our politics.

Democrat Christina Bohannan was to file her nominating petitions for U.S. House in District 1 at the Secretary of State’s office this week. She will face the winner of a two-way primary between Republican candidates Mariannette Miller-Meeks, and newcomer David Pautsch. We won’t know the final match up until after the June 4 primary.

Democrat Ed Chabal, chief financial officer of the Mount Pleasant Community School District, filed his petitions for State Senator in District 46 on March 5. Incumbent Republican Dawn Driscoll filed for re-election in February.

House District 91 is an open race with two Republicans in the primary so far (Mayor Adam Grier of Williamsburg and Lawyer Judd Lawler of Oxford). As I posted this, Democrats were collecting petition signatures for a candidate, with plans to file before the deadline. There is a lot to learn about these candidates.

How do we learn about candidates in 2024? For me, living at the far eastern border of the legislative districts, it is all about shaking their hands and getting to know them with a short conversation. I expect civility and concern for the needs of everyone in the district. Here’s hoping we have a chance to see all these candidates throughout the districts before the June primary.

~ Published as a letter to the editor in the Hometown Current on March 14, 2024.