Mariannette Miller-Meeks at the Iowa State Fair, Aug. 13, 2010. Photo credit – Wikimedia Commons.
It is a basic function of government to fund operations. With the Federal Government, it’s complicated, yet is a primary reason we send U.S. Senators and Representatives to Washington.
Both Iowa Senators, Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley recognize the need to fund the government without shutting it down first. This is evidenced by their vote for a 45-day continuing resolution this week. However, U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has come up short in the recognition category, voting on a meaningless impeachment inquiry, and planning her annual tailgate fund raising event, instead of persuading Republican colleagues to avoid a shutdown and work on passing a budget.
It is unfortunate, yet Miller-Meeks has turned into a non-entity since she entered Congress. She is a hollow shell, a place holder, towing the line of her Republican superiors and the moneyed interests like the fossil fuel companies that fund her campaigns.
Why hasn’t Miller-Meeks pushed to get the Farm Bill passed?
Why hasn’t she dismissed the impeachment of the president for the waste of time it is?
If the government shuts down because the House Republican caucus can’t agree among themselves, Miller-Meeks bears some of the responsibility.
We must remove her from office in November 2024 and replace her with a Democrat like Christina Bohannan that knows why they are sent to Washington.
~ Prepared and submitted as a letter to the editor of local newspapers.
While clearing brush in the front yard I picked up something that caused a rash. My arm is red and it itches. I happened to already have a clinic appointment this week so I asked them about the rash. They prescribed a cream, and messaged it to the pharmacy approved by my insurance company. It’s not the closest pharmacy to our house.
I like having a nearby pharmacy so anything health-related, not covered by insurance, I buy at the one in town if they have it. While there yesterday, I ran into a friend with whom I worked on the John Kerry for president campaign. As people do in a small town, we chatted outside the pharmacy for a while and talked about meeting for coffee next week.
When aging, chance meetings like this take on more meaning.
If I go to the wholesale club on a Monday morning, one of my fellow bloggers is usually there provisioning. When I walk on the trail, I encounter people from the neighborhood. When I visit the grocery store in the county seat I invariably see someone I know. With the isolation of aging comes a need to speak with other humans. I attempt to be brief and meaningful when I encounter someone in the wild.
Maintaining a single family dwelling is part of the reason for this. When Grandmother took a room at a women’s club in Davenport, it provided many socialization opportunities. When they later allowed men to reside there, some of the socialization was unwelcome. Decades of writing have formed my personality and I don’t mind being alone most of the time. Living alone frees me to explore what life presents where it leads… or not.
It took the coronavirus pandemic for me to realize that chance encounters happen and to recognize them as a thing. Now that I do, I relish each one as a way to reconnect with the broader society. I am becoming a master of polite conversation and embrace it. There is a life beyond the walls of a home and I need the connection to go on writing.
I don’t know when it will be, yet I look forward to my next chance encounter. I’m ready for it.
The Solon Economist reported about the Nov. 7 city and school board elections in its Aug. 31 edition. The article didn’t say much. In particular, the author did not say whether the incumbents were running for re-election.
Local newspapers are under financial stress, yet we rely upon them for coverage of local elections. At the end of the article, the unnamed author informed readers, “Once ballots are finalized with the County Auditor’s office, the Solon Economist will reach out to all of the candidates.” There is a certain economy in covering elections this way. After reading that sentence I immediately felt I wanted to know more.
I reached out to Adam Haluska and Jami Wolf on the school board and both confirmed they were running for re-election. Wolf told me both had filed their paperwork. I covered the six-way race in 2019. That was a defining election that set a direction for the school board. Haluska and Wolf won by a distance and it would take an extraordinary candidate to beat them this year.
The filing period for school board candidates closes at 5 p.m. on Sept. 21. In my reading of the local electorate, if someone else were filing, I’d have heard of it by now. I don’t expect anyone else to file. If that expectation holds, the election will become a low-turnout rubber stamp on continuing with Haluska and Wolf. That would not be bad.
Given the propensity of the Iowa Legislature to overreach and attempt to control school boards with half-baked schemes, the experience gained by these school board members will hopefully make the coming four years less turbulent. There were good alternatives to them in 2019, and the voters made their intent clear.
Friday I spent an hour with Jami Wolf at a coffee shop in Solon. Two things are of note.
She doesn’t see much budgetary impact of Governor Reynolds new voucher program. Solon has closed enrollment and people who want to move their kids have already done so. She said there are not many, if any, private schools in the Solon area where vouchers would do some good. We didn’t discuss home schoolers, but as with people who move kids to other districts, people who want to home school already were before vouchers. She believes the impact of vouchers will be more dominant in larger school districts in urban areas.
No book banning issue has come before the school board. Wolf agreed with me that processes were in place to keep inappropriate material out of some student hands before the legislature got involved. She said there was a lack of specific guidance about how the state law pertaining to reading and curriculum restrictions should be implemented. She emphasized that how those restrictions are interpreted will likely be the key dynamic. Right now, there is no dominant interpretation, that is, everyone has an opinion. We talked about litigating the book ban law and she would prefer to let other districts litigate flaws in the new state law than the Solon District. If the issue has not come to the board, it is likely not an issue here, at least until someone makes it one, or more specific guidance comes from the state.
Since I covered Haluska and Wolf in 2019, I don’t plan to write much about the 2023 election unless someone else files by the deadline. We should know the field by the beginning of autumn on Sept. 23.
UPDATE (Sept. 23, 2023): The filing period closed on Sept. 21 and Adam Haluska and Jami Wolf were the only two candidates who filed. Other than voting, that’s it for me for this election cycle.
Rain fell against my windshield for the entirety of the 2-hour drive from Des Moines Sunday night. We need rain.
The next day, on my walk along the lake shore trail, it was clear the Lake Macbride Watershed absorbed all of the rain without any extra. The culvert that empties from the watershed into the lake continued to be bone dry.
On Tuesday there was a brief thunderstorm with powerful winds. The optimist in me believes the drought has broken. The ten-day forecast shows the potential for some additional rain on Saturday. Fingers crossed!
Today I picked enough apples to get started on the final rounds of processing. The three crates will be sorted into juicers, fresh eaters, and saucers. There are enough here to finish the number of quart jars of sauce we wanted and get started on the rest of the apple cider vinegar. I plan to make an apple crisp for dessert from some of them. There are worse retirement lives to live than mine.
The big news from Washington D.C. was that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, not having enough votes to pursue formal impeachment of President Biden, created an ad hoc “impeachment inquiry” anyway. McCarthy said the probe will be led by House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) in coordination with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OHIO) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO), who have been leading the investigations into Hunter Biden and his father. The reason there are not enough votes to create a formal impeachment inquiry is that Republicans can’t get the goods on the president. They have already been investigating and found no evidence of any wrong-doing.
My congresswoman, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, was quick to jump on the impeachment inquiry band wagon, ignoring what she should be working on — the end of month deadline to fund the government — to give a one-minute speech with a chart titled, “The Bidens’ Influence Peddling Timeline.” Her opponent, Christina Bohannan, was quick to fund raise off the speech, saying in part,
In a few weeks, these extreme Republicans are planning to shut down the government, meaning seniors may not get their Social Security checks, veterans may lose healthcare, our troops may not get paid, and on and on. Iowans’ everyday lives will be severely affected by her political gamesmanship. We must inform our voters of what Miller-Meeks is really up to in Washington.
Email from Christina Bohannan for Congress, Sept. 12, 2023.
What is Miller-Meeks really up to in Washington? Providing cover for the 45th president. For the first 234 years of the nation’s history, no American president or former president had ever been indicted. That changed with Donald J. Trump.
A woman posted her hobbies on a community website to encourage people to contact her to be friends. She was new to the county seat and was having trouble getting to know people, the post said. To encourage people, she listed these hobbies: discovering places/things, thrift stores, garage sales, movies, going out to eat, and museums. I wish her well.
I don’t have consumer-oriented hobbies like shopping or attending events. I’m caught up in living and don’t have time for extras like a hobby. In any case, I view myself as a maker rather than a hobbyist and am consumed with figuring out my world and doing something positive in it. Producing a garden or shopping for books are not hobbies. They are just one more thing I do to keep the operation going.
There is a difference between a hobbyist and a crafter. For example, someone who builds and collects scale model replicas of aircraft spends a lot of time on a kit making it look as professional as possible.The finished product then goes with the rest of their collection. This is a hobbyist. A crafter, on the other hand, sews a shirt with the express purpose of wearing it, and then wearing it out. If I make something, I want to be able to use it and if I wear it out, I’ll make another.
When I attend political meetings, or when I served on a board at the university, invariably someone brought crocheting or knitting to keep their hands busy while the meeting continued. Whatever they were working on was a gift for someone or for some special event. They always found value in even the most tedious meetings. Maybe we all would have felt more productive if we had brought crocheting.
It is fair to redefine how we live our lives. If someone calls my gardening a hobby, that doesn’t bother me. It also doesn’t mean I have to call it one too. Maybe I just don’t want to relate to the person in a hobby-like manner. In fact, for me, it’s not about the craftsmanship that goes into a hobby. It’s the fact I can have a conversation with someone about it. That is more sustainable than building a shelf for the knickknacks collected from countless indistinguishable trips to thrift shops.
The idea that I could get together with strangers who share a hobby is off the charts bad. Why would I want to divert from said hobby unless I hoped to learn something to solve a specific problem? I wouldn’t. Life is short. We spend our time as productively as is possible. If it is hobby-like, well that’s not my concern.
In 2022 I wrote how I felt about Labor Day: “Even though I retired during the pandemic, and its been many years since I carried a union card, I believe I’ll take the day off, work at home, and thank a union.” At 11.3 percent of the workforce, there are not that many American workers represented by a union. The number is down by 0.3 percent over last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Iowa City Federation of Labor is hosting a Labor Day picnic at City Park this afternoon. When I was more involved with politics, I attended the annual event. What I found was it was difficult to relate to young union families with children. It is their event. Rather than feel alienated as a “friend of labor” once a year, I no longer attend. I’m okay with that. The union members in attendance likely won’t miss me.
It is hard to avoid talking about class on Labor Day. George Carlin famously said there are three classes in the United States, the rich who have all the money and don’t pay taxes, the middle class who do all the work and pay all the taxes, and the poor who exist to keep the middle class in line as a warning of what they might become. Carlin was funnier when he said this. The division between the rich and everyone else is no laughing matter.
My member of Congress sent her weekly update Sunday afternoon and it serves as an example of how Republicans attempt to co-opt the middle-class. There was no mention of the Labor Day Federal Holiday in it.
Miller-Meeks believes H.R. 1, The Lower Energy Costs Act is the answer to what’s troubling the middle class. The bill passed the House with four Democratic votes and is stalled in the Senate. I described the bill previously here. The bill represents a rejection of the Biden administration energy policy and establishes a view of the middle class that may sound good yet is off base. Here is the second paragraph from the email.
The consequences of high energy costs are far-reaching, particularly for working-class families who find themselves grappling with the rising cost of living. As gas prices linger almost $2 higher than they were when President Biden took office, many families are left to make difficult choices between essentials like groceries and rent. The relationship between energy policy and the price of goods is undeniable as American companies rely heavily on having affordable energy for both manufacturing and transportation. In fact, a major component of food costs is energy, which affects average Americans every day with much higher food prices. With gas prices nearly doubling in recent years, American companies of all sizes are left with no choice but to raise the prices of the goods they produce to survive financially. With an abundance of energy resources on American soil, hardworking Americans should never be forced to make tough financial decisions on their most basic needs.
Miller-Meeks Weekly Script, Sept. 3, 2023.
Was there ever a time when people did not grapple with the rising cost of living? No. Since I can remember, our family never had enough money to do everything we wanted. Each bill we got was prioritized in the order of payment. There were good times when we felt we could splurge on a vacation, but mostly, we held our nose to the grindstone to pay for our child’s education, pay off the mortgage, and keep functioning in society. Grappling to meet household financial needs is neither Republican nor Democratic. What is significant is the usage brings “working-class families” under the Republican tent. This is not a minor point.
While middle-class families may be familiar with gas prices when they fuel up, things get complicated when discussing why the local prices increased.
We can see the price at the convenience mart or gas station is higher than in recent memory. Two dollars higher than when Biden took office? No. She rounded up to simplify for the masses. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the U.S. All Grades All Formulations Retail Gasoline Price per gallon was $2.420 in January 2021 when Biden was inaugurated. It was $3.954 per gallon last month. Gas prices doubled in recent years? No. Half of $3.954 is $1.98. Gas prices have not been consistently below that number since April 2004, although they did hit it for a single month after Trump took office. The congresswoman is selling us subtle woof tickets here.
By sanding the specifics off her message, Miller-Meeks seeks to gain buy-in to a conservative view of how we live. “Grappling the rising cost of living,” “gas prices,” “difficult choices between essentials like groceries and rent,” and “hardworking Americans,” are all political tropes. As gossip columnist Louella Parsons might have said, they are nothing burgers. The evenly-worded message lures the unsuspecting in, and I believe gains the congresswoman votes.
To make lives of middle-class working Americans better, Republicans should support universal healthcare, lifting the cap on Social Security taxes, raising the minimum wage, taxing the rich, smart regulation of business, and our K-12 public school system. I don’t hear any of that from the Republican who represents me in the Congress. If she did want to support the middle class, she might turn her attention to some of these instead of to energy policy which masks the large corporate entities who are pulling the strings on what gets done in Washington.
Best wishes for a happy Labor Day to all my card-carrying union buddies. You earned this holiday.
Ribbon cutting ceremony at the almost finished interchange on I-80/I-380 near Coralville on Aug. 25, 2023. Photo Credit – Mariannette Miller-Meeks congressional newsletter Aug. 27, 2023.
It has been no secret the interchange between Interstates 80 and 380 near Coralville needed improvement. It has long been one of the most crash-prone places in the state of Iowa. Commenced in 2018, the infrastructure project to reconstruct it is approaching completion, maybe in time for the Labor Day weekend.
On Friday, Aug. 25, the Iowa DOT held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to “open” the Highway 218 part of the exchange. This is a bit of an artificial marker because the place is so large, the part of the exchange I use to travel to Des Moines has been finished and open most of the summer.
The exchange sprawls a lot of land, so that is a negative. A potential decrease in number of accidents and ease of use are in the asset column. Once a driver learns how to use the exchange, it can be a stress-reliever. The rebuilt exchange should improve traffic flows which will be noticeable for University of Iowa sporting event patrons.
Naturally, area politicians attended the ribbon cutting ceremony. Coralville Mayor Meghann Foster got the lead quote in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Iowa City Mayor Bruce Teague was also quoted. My member of congress Mariannette Miller-Meeks was the highest-ranking elected official present and she was not quoted. All the elected officials present were supportive of the project.
Cedar Rapids Gazette photo of the ribbon cutting ceremony for the I-80/I-380 interchange on Aug. 25, 2023.
Events like the opening of an important Interstate Highway exchange could be a kumbaya moment for the community. This one wasn’t. After the ceremonial scissors sliced the ribbon, the politicians broke down into groups by party for selfies. By the weekend, they were posting photos with their friends, said photos, with the exception of the one above, included no members of the opposing party. It was a subtle vibe, but increasingly present as time went on and the partisan pics came across my feeds.
What was I expecting?
The term kumbaya originates in an African-American spiritual song from the American South. The earliest record in the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center (AFC) comes from lyrics collected in North Carolina in 1926 for a song called “Oh Lord, Won’t You Come By Here.” The spiritual pleads for divine intervention—for God to come by here and help a people in great need, referencing an area historically connected to the enslavement and oppression of African Americans. The word kumbaya is taken from the song’s refrain.
Maybe we need divine intervention to relieve us of partisanship. What the politicians did that Friday isn’t getting us to the promised land. Society is divided, even at a ribbon-cutting for infrastructure that helps everyone.
At least we have a new, safer Interstate interchange upon which to drive. I’m not sure it helps us get anywhere better with regard to our politics. We need something that will bridge the political gap between us. Sadly, this event wasn’t it.
Some days I wish the 45th President would settle into retirement and fade away. That doesn’t seem likely. There is, however, a strong case that Trump is disqualified from being on the ballot because of his engagement in the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. Dean Obeidallah presents a case for action in a recent substack post.
Last week, two prominent conservative scholars, William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St Thomas, made a compelling case that Trump is disqualified from holding office in article published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. And just a few days ago, conservative former federal court of appeals judge J. Michael Luttig and famed Harvard Law constitutional professor Laurence Tribe penned an article for The Atlantic titled, “The Constitution Prohibits Trump From Ever Being President Again.” These two distinguished jurists reached the same conclusion that Trump had “engaged in insurrection” and is barred from ever serving in federal office again by way of the US Constitution.
I filed a complaint to disqualify Trump from the ballot and so should you! by Dean Obeidallah, Aug. 23, 2023.
Read Obeidallah’s full article here. Then consider copying and pasting the following email to Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate at sos@sos.iowa.gov. Feel free to edit the email to meet your needs. If you do send the email, I expect your will feel better.
Dear Secretary of State Pate,
I’m writing to your offices urging a formal review of whether Donald Trump is barred from the ballot in Iowa by way of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That Amendment disqualifies from the ballot any person who “shall have engaged” in an “insurrection.” For such a disqualification, there is no requirement that Trump or any person be first convicted of any crime—as the Congressional Research Service notes.
In addition, last year after a trial in New Mexico, a judge ruled that Jan 6 was an “insurrection” within the meaning of the 14th Amendment and that Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin was removed from office and disqualified from the ballot for “engaging” in that attack. Donald Trump’s actions– as detailed in the final report of the “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack”—far exceed the actions of Griffin in terms of “engaging” in the Jan 6 insurrection. While that New Mexico ruling is not binding in this state, it is persuasive in its reasoning and I urge your offices to read it.
Finally, conservative legal scholars have recently penned articles reaching the conclusion that given Trump’s conduct, the US Constitution does in fact bar Trump from the ballot.
As the US Constitution mandates, no one should be permitted to be on the ballot who has engaged in an insurrection. The time to review if Trump has done just that and is barred from the ballot is now—well before the 2024 election.
Thank you for considering this issue that is vitally important to protecting our Republic.
After the Aug. 17, 2023 town hall meeting in Shueyville, State Representative Amy Nielsen provided the following information to help stay current with what the Iowa House Democrats are doing:
Official Legislative Website and Subscribe to Newsletter:
The United States is a country where we constantly balance security and liberty. During my youth, we were taught to believe that a large nuclear weapons arsenal, with a triad of land-based missiles, aircraft-dropped gravity bombs, and submarines would deter the Soviet Union from attacking us. When the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 happened, we shifted to a concern that a small group of terrorists had brought havoc on the country by bombing three locations with hijacked aircraft and could do it again. We subsequently gave unprecedented authority to the President to manage our security.
While it seems unlikely that one of the nuclear armed states would initiate an attack with nuclear weapons in the sort term future, the reality of ease a terrorist group has of constructing a single nuclear weapon with fissile materials collected from across the globe is as present as ever. Osama Bin Laden notably consulted with nuclear engineers at his last residence in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Terrorists have said they would use nuclear weapons if they could get the materials to make them and likely would. In the United States, we are free as long as we defend against this possibility.
What are Iowans doing to protect us? On Monday, Aug. 21, the governor’s office issued a press release saying Governor Kim Reynolds had joined four other governors at Eagle Pass, Texas to “ban together to secure border. The typo/misspelling aside, Reynolds had serious intent:
Texas is ground zero, front and center of the border crisis,” said Governor Reynolds… “On day 1 of the Biden Administration, they reversed policies that protect the sovereignty of this country and its citizens. Iowa is located at the intersection of two major interstates, and it is a pathway for Mexican cartels and humans traffickers in the Midwest.
Governors Reynolds, Abbott, Pillen, Stitt and Noem Ban Together To Secure Border, Office of the Iowa Governor, Aug. 21, 2023.
During this brief moment of grandstanding, the Republican governors seem to have forgotten the Biden administration has been working on the causes of illegal immigration, almost since day one. Vice President Harris has been charged with determining what can be done with the governments of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and others as people in those countries, including children and families, fled in record numbers. Migration from the region has spiked due to a web of factors, including poverty, corruption, racism, disease, natural disasters and gang violence, according to the Los Angeles Times. Governor Reynolds didn’t mention or acknowledge what the administration is doing because her trip was more about winning the 2024 election by scaring the electorate.
Let’s not forget that drug dealers won’t be stopped by improved security across the southern border. They have the resources, staffing, and technology to create innovative solutions to deliver their wares to the United States, including submersible ocean-going vessels, and aircraft that don’t touch land until they arrive in country. Republicans belied the complexity of dealing with threats from Mexico and Central America at their Eagle Pass photo opportunity. They distract us from other, more realistic threats to our security and liberty. They are going to have to do something other than point an accusing finger at the president to be credible.
Among our biggest threats to security are proliferation of assault-style weapons. There are droughts, derechos, tornadoes and heat waves made worse by climate change. The threat of terrorists securing enough fissile material to make a nuclear bomb, continues to be an issue. What about all these threats to our security? The governors did not mention them at Eagle Pass and more’s the pity. It is time to band together with fellow Democrats to ouster the governor when she is up for reelection in 2026.
In the meanwhile, to get involved with Iowa Democrats, click on this link.
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