Categories
Living in Society

Politics Doesn’t Change

Dave Loebsack

Editor’s Note: I was cleaning up old email files and found this April 10, 2005 email from Dave Loebsack announcing to a small group he was exploring a run for the Congress. As we now know, Loebsack beat 30-year incumbent Jim Leach and served until Jan. 3, 2021. His analysis of the direction of the Republican Party seems spot on, not only for 2005, but from a perspective in 2024. It is presented without editing. I hope readers will be inspired to help Christina Bohannan re-take this seat in November.

Recently, I sent a message to a number of listservs in the 2nd congressional district noting that I am beginning an informal “exploration” of a run against Jim Leach in ’06.

Many of you know me as a teacher of political science at Cornell College since 1982 and a long-time Democratic Party activist in Linn and Johnson counties and beyond. I have also worked hard to help the public engage in important issues by serving as a resource person for various civic groups, delivering lectures, facilitating discussion, moderating events, appearing on local television public issues programs, etc.

Why am I considering running at this point?

It is time that we in this district begin to halt George Bush and the hard right of the Republican Party as they try to move America ever farther in their direction. In recent days, we have seen this movement evident by the efforts of Tom DeLay and his allies as they try to capture control of the federal judiciary. Apparently, it is not enough to control the executive and legislature. They want all three branches of government in their grasp.

The simple truth is that Jim Leach remains a Republican who, as Julie Thomas put it in 2002, at a minimum serves as an enabler for the right-wing leadership in the House and the Bush administration. What is needed at this point is a representative who is in touch with the concerns of folks in this congressional district and who is willing to “lead” on issues that matter.

Just one example of Jim Leach’s bad votes makes this point. Recently, he voted for the House version of Bush budget that would significantly scale back if not completely gut many of the programs that are the only sources of support for those who have nowhere else to turn, in many cases just to survive. Indeed, the House budget is even harsher than the Bush budget. The values reflected in this budget, I believe, are not the values of the vast majority of folks in the second district of Iowa. Interestingly, there were a few Republicans in the House had the courage to vote no, but not Jim Leach.

At this point, I invite you to be in touch with me if you have questions about what I stand for, who I am, etc. Also, I am open to all advice and support. If you think I should move forward with this “exploration,” please let me know. If you think you would support me as a volunteer or financially, please let me know. If you think there are others who are more qualified than I and who deserve our unified support, please let me know. I do not plan to do this if I don’t believe the necessary support (perhaps most critically the necessary financial support) will be forthcoming.

No doubt the road ahead will be difficult for any candidate who ultimately takes on Jim Leach in 2006. He is a well-entrenched figure who has been in congress for nearly 30 years and he can self-fund any campaign if need be. Given these realities, any campaign in this district will likely have to build from the ground up. We need to begin NOW to build a true grassroots movement to take back this district as a first step towards taking back America from the right-wing of the Republican Party. This will take some time but it can begin right here in the 2nd district of eastern and southeastern Iowa!

Over the course of the past few weeks since I first sent a version of this message out, support for this “exploration” has been quite humbling. Indeed, I have taken the next step and set up an account where I will deposit any contributions that might be sent for this effort. Should you be so inclined to help, simply make the check out to “Loebsack Exploratory Committee” and send it to the address below.

In the meantime, I urge you to make a pledge that indicates your interest in this campaign and your support for this effort should I move on to the next stage and declare a formal candidacy.

We can take back our country from the right-wing of the Republican Party and we can begin to so do by electing a Democrat in the second congressional district who will lead on the issues that matter to folks in this part of Iowa.

Thanks, and take care.
David Loebsack
Mt. Vernon, Iowa

Help Christina Bohannan replace a MAGA-R in the Congress. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  Check out her campaign website.

Categories
Living in Society

Art Books

Shelf of art books

My relationship with the world of art is tenuous at best. A few high school and university friends practiced the visual arts. They were, and in some cases still are, multidisciplinary artists. I viewed myself as a multi-media creator yet throwing a pot, painting a watercolor, or drawing a sketch are activities in my portfolio that have been lost to exigencies of living a modern life. I have a lot of art books and art memories. It’s a big topic, so I’ll limit myself to three things: books in my library, artists I’ve seen or knew in person, and major shows I attended.

Art books take up too much space. When I built the bookshelves in my library I designed a shelf to accommodate them. Having so many is a function of my interest in certain artists like Picasso, Joan Miró, Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Edward Hopper, and the like. I saw major retrospectives of each of these artists and usually bought a book to remember the work. I picked up many art books at used book sales. Until I get to the point of running out of space, most of them will stay right where they are in the library.

Among the pantheon of artists who lived during my lifetime, three come to mind: Joan Miró, Louise Nevelson, and Leslie Bell.

I saw a major Miró retrospective in Paris in 1974. I wrote in my journal, “The show of Joan Miró was very complete and what impressed most were the ceramics and weaving. The paintings lacked something in such great numbers, better just a few to contemplate rather than such overdose.” Later, on a 1978 trip through Italy with friends, I saw the artist filming a program for French television at Fondation Maeght in Saint Paul de Vence. While Miró is known as a Catalan painter, the unexpected encounter on the French Riviera cemented him as French to me.

Louise Nevelson came to Iowa City for the installation of Voyage at the University Lindquist Center. I happened to be at the installation site when the artist walked up to have a look at the space. She was scheduled to give a lecture at the Museum of Art later that day. The University describes the work in place:

Voyage was the first sculpture purchased with funds provided by the Art in State Buildings Program, initiated in 1978. With public works such as Voyage, Louise Nevelson creates a visual dialogue using existing scenery and groups of vertical elements, evocative of trees or plant like forms. Nevelson preferred to see her large-scale outdoor sculpture, which she undertook in the last fifteen years of her life, as environmental architecture. Voyage fits this description as it commands attention within the closed-off courtyard of the Lindquist Center. Yet, it does not overwhelm the entire space. The work invites dialogue with the viewer, offering a variety of shapes, forming spatial relationships with both the spectator and the architectural environment.

Iowa Facilities Management website.

One local artist I knew well was Leslie Bell, an art professor at Saint Ambrose University. Les was a couple years ahead of me in high school. I came to know him more as a musician than a visual artist. He was good at whatever he did. I recall picking him up while hitch hiking to a friend’s home. I engaged his band to play at our fifth high school class reunion. He was part of a small group of intellectuals in the Quad Cities. He helped create a film festival around the time I returned from military service. We were not close friends. He was an example of someone successful in making art a career. He influenced many students at Saint Ambrose. I thought about him while I tried to figure out how to live in my home town as an adult in the early 1980s.

I visited so many art museums during my life. During trips to Europe I made a point to see the works of Johannes Vermeer, which are not gathered in a single location. I saw a lot of them. I made a point to see Monet’s work in Paris. I bought a book of Byzantine mosaic images when visiting Ravenna, Italy in 1974. I saw the Picasso retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Andy Warhol retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective somewhere. The latter was so much about the artist and not about the location of the retrospective. Seeing art in person is essential and I did my share of it.

How shall I use the couple hundred art books in my library? For reference, of course. There has to be something more than that. I’ve been creating so long, I don’t need many references. As long as I have the space, they can sit on shelves waiting for my attention.

Categories
Writing

Weekly Journal 2024.02.25

Morning coffee.

Beginning today, I plan to post a weekly journal of significant activities for the week ending on Sunday. This week, I already wrote about my trip to pick up soil mix, cooking lentil soup, movies, and a short, developmental piece from my work in progress autobiography. This week’s entry may be short.

The purpose is to make a conscious decision to reduce how many times I post here and use that time to advance my autobiography. With spring arriving in four weeks, I need more writing time. I debate changing how I describe my autobiography to my “WIP,” or work in progress like all the cool writers do on Threads. Autobiography seems like too big a mouth full and I don’t like “memoir.”

On Saturday and Sunday, I’m filling in at Blog for Iowa for a while, and those posts will be cross posted here without comment. I strive for a broader audience and put more effort into selecting topics for those Iowa readers. I’ll also cross post any writing that gets published in the newspaper, or other places in the real world, also without comment. A letter to the editor is often a re-working and shortening of something else I posted here, so it seems like duplication to publish the letter like the one that made last Thursday’s Cedar Rapids Gazette here as well.

I’ve pretty much given up on a range of topics that used to be important to me. Cooking, recipes, gardening, local food, and others remain parts of my life. I just don’t feel I have anything new to say. I am weary of writing about “organic practices” when so many people are food insecure. I plan to give those a rest unless I prepare a great dish and want to preserve how I made it. I may highlight unique ways I find to increase food security among those who need it.

I’ve been taking a lot of photos of morning cups of coffee. I post them on my Threads account, tag them a certain way, and there is a group that goes into a frenzy of liking them. These posts get, by far, more views than any others I put up. It’s sad, but it’s something.

That’s it for this week. Let’s all make it a great one next week!

Categories
Living in Society

Thanks Joe Biden

The economic mark of the Biden Administration can be found everywhere in Iowa. From electric vehicle charging stations and wastewater treatment facility upgrades, to grants for improved rural broadband connectivity, Biden worked with the Congress to deliver results for Iowans.

Despite these tangible contributions to improving the lives of Iowans, why doesn’t the president get more public credit for his work? I submit the reason is citizens just expect infrastructure things to happen. It is government acting as it should be and therefore if nothing seems broken, no worries. No credit for elected officials either.

At the same time infrastructure improvement happens, there is a coterie of Congress-people sowing chaos in the U.S. Capitol in an obvious, although ill-advised, attempt to re-elect indicted criminal Donald J. Trump as President. I don’t know if Matt Gaetz is the ring leader, yet he is at the center of efforts to disrupt our government and economy at the bidding of the 45th president. Gaetz was recently profiled in The New Yorker.

In seven years in Congress, Gaetz has helped make the institution even more dysfunctional than it already was, threatening to shut down the federal government and force a default on its debt. Gaetz is a paradox: he is determined to attack the modern democratic state, but he harbors ambitions that only modern American politics can satisfy. He articulates an idea of the country that seems so negative—ridiculing his colleagues, trashing the welfare state, scorning embattled democracies abroad—that it is sometimes difficult to see what he stands for. And yet the more Gaetz tears down, the more his supporters love him.

Matt Goetz’s Chaos Agenda, The New Yorker, Feb. 19, 2024.

I recommend reading the entire article at the link.

I have confidence in the American people and in Iowans. The Iowa Democratic Party is on the right path with its People before Politics campaign. As an Iowan, everywhere I turn in state government there are problems with its current direction.

For example, I currently need a certified copy of a birth certificate for the new Real ID program, which adds a gold star to my driver’s license. I don’t like flying in commercial aircraft, yet may have to in event of an emergency. Real ID or additional documents will soon be required. The needed certified government document was available at the county recorder’s office, yet when I called them to ask questions, they referred me to an outfit called VitalChek to get it. “You can order it from us by mail and you can also just call them and they will send it to you,” the person answering the phone said. That’s fine if the outsourcing of normal government functions saves money for the state. What VitalChek does is add a substantial fee to the request, in addition to the charge for the document. Perhaps some government staffing was reduced in this move, but the expense was transferred directly to citizens in the form of extra fees. Pile on enough stuff like this, and the people of Iowa may get irritated enough to vote Republicans out of office. Maybe then Iowans will recognize the good work Democrats can and in Biden’s case are doing.

To leave on a positive note, I linked to this video about broadband in Iowa. Whatever you do in the near future, be sure to give the Biden Administration credit for the good work they are doing.

Categories
Living in Society

Nonbinary People Deserve To Live

Stock photo of a “nonbinary person.” Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

Editor’s Note: This post contains material of a highly sensitive nature including description of events leading to the death of Nex Benedict that may be triggering for some individuals.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren describes how many of us feel about the death of Nex Benedict after a beating in a school bathroom in Owasso, Oklahoma.

The killing of Nex Benedict is gut-wrenching and underscores the danger of extremists who are dehumanizing kids with anti-trans hate in Oklahoma and across the country. Every student should feel safe at school and supported for who they are. Nex deserves justice.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on Threads, Feb. 21, 2024.

Oklahoma Republican state legislators passed a bathroom bill. Now a nonbinary kid is dead. A definitive narrative of what happened has been slow to emerge. An autopsy was being conducted to determine cause of death. Authorities are waiting for the results of toxicology studies. Here’s part of what we know from the local police department investigation:

This story is complicated and reports in media are not uniform. Likewise, there is public skepticism about the police statement “the decedent did not die as a result of trauma.” The toxicology report as well as the complete Medical Examiner’s report will show the cause and manner of death and that could still be weeks away. On Thursday, Feb. 22, the Owasso Police executed a search warrant at the school and collected evidence to be used in the investigation.

One of the things we do know is the state passed a book ban law and the school district that includes Owasso High School hired the producer of a conservative, right wing website, Libs of TikTok, to oversee the process. After work began, the Libs of TikTok website featured a video with one of the school teachers who they characterized as a groomer because they disagreed with books selected for exclusion from classrooms and the library. That teacher subsequently resigned. Who would want to attend a public school with this type of environment?

There are reports Nex Benedict was harassed for a year before their death. School harassment is common in the United States. In many cases, it is parents and other adults who bear responsibility for such harassment by giving permission to school children to harass people who are different. Some say the Libs of TikTok is culpable in creating an environment where harassment was more likely. In any case, Nex Benedict is dead after being harassed.

When asked about the death of Nex Benedict, Oklahoma State Senator Tom Woods said,

We are a Republican state – supermajority – in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma. We are a religious state and we are going to fight it to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma because we are a Christian state – we are a moral state. We want to lower taxes and let people be able to live and work and go to the faith they choose. We are a Republican state and I’m going to vote my district, and I’m going to vote my values, and we don’t want that in the state of Oklahoma.

State Senator Tom Wood, Tahlequah Daily Press, Feb. 23, 2024.

Nonbinary people tell me the thing they fear most about living in America is that a segment of the population wants LGBTQ+ people completely erased from society. Dead would be preferable, they said. If there is one certain lesson to learn as this story develops, it is nonbinary people deserve to live.

Below are links to some of the major stories about this death, which readers can review for themselves.

The Independent

Washington Post

The Daily Beast

Los Angeles Blade

New Republic

The Oklahoman

If you live near Owasso, this is happening Feb. 25. Other, similar events are popping up across the United States.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Getting Soil Mix

First Soil Blocks at the CSA

It was time to get soil mix for seed starting. The amount leftover from last year wasn’t enough to get through this weekend’s planting of herbs, cauliflower and broccoli. I emailed the dirt company (yes, we have those in Iowa) to make sure they had what I needed and drove over near Tipton yesterday to get it. The sun was so bright I had to wear sunglasses.

I enjoy that drive. When I was a paid political campaign consultant I got to know Cedar County quite well, both cities and rural areas. I could name the owners of some of the farms as I passed. The direct route to the dirt company is over gravel roads. While the car needs a wash when I finish the trip, I feel comfortable in that geography without a map. I have driven those roads so much I don’t need one.

It was also a great day to be outdoors driving along massive fields coming out of winter. There were a few pieces of farm equipment on the roads, yet most of the fields haven’t been touched this year. Corn stubble left from the 2023 harvest was everywhere. The Cedar River seemed lower than usual, likely a result of continuing drought conditions. It seemed like the end of winter, although with spring not far away.

It has been more than ten years since I had a pickup truck. I miss those days. To get the soil mix to fit in our subcompact, I had to remove the shelf in the back window and flip down the seats. I laid a couple of towels over everything so it wouldn’t get dirty. The subcompact held to the roads pretty well as I am an experienced rural driver.

I figure there are 14 more gardens in me before I get too old to grow them. Back in the day when we first married I just stuck tomato plants in the ground and hoped they produced. I added some skills in the 41 years since those first plantings. It helped to work on a vegetable farm for eight years.

The new portable greenhouse arrived, my fourth since I began using them. One was damaged in a straight line wind storm, the next by the August 2020 derecho, and last year the zipper tore loose. With a new one, this year should be fine. I’d prefer a permanent greenhouse yet even with the replacements it has been much cheaper to use the portable ones. We have plenty of uses for any extra cash, so the savings is welcome.

The kale seedlings are sprouting their third leaves so it’s time to put them in a bigger container before planting. With new soil mix in the garage, I’m ready.

Categories
Home Life

Lentil Soup

Lentil soup in the refrigerator.

I made lentil soup for dinner last night. With a slice of bread, it made a satisfying meal. What distinguished this pot of soup from more generic vegetable soups I make was the restricted number of ingredients. Here’s how I made it.

I covered the bottom of the Dutch oven with tomato juice and brought it to temperature: enough juice to steam fry the vegetables. We use tomato juice instead of oil to reduce our consumption of cooking oil. My tomato juice is a byproduct of making tomato sauce from the garden.

Next came finely diced onions, carrots, and celery, the mainstays of any soup. I added three bay leaves and salted. Then I diced three medium potatoes and added them.

From the pantry I added one and a half cups of dried lentils and three quarters cup pearled barley. Cover with tomato juice and set to medium heat.

From the freezer I added two one-cup bags of shredded zucchini and two frozen disks of fresh parsley. By now, the lentils and barley were absorbing the liquid so I added tomato juice and one quart of water to cover. I used a total of three quarts of tomato juice and one quart of water.

Two or three cups of chopped, fresh leafy green vegetables from the garden. I had collards for this pot of soup, but kale, collards or others will serve. Frozen is fine also.

Once the pot boils, reduce the heat and let it simmer until the lentils, barley and potatoes are tender. This process yielded a meal for two people plus three and a half extra quarts of soup for leftovers.

It is the kind of meal regular folks like us appreciate.

Categories
Living in Society

Nascent Photographer

Digital camera with extra batteries circa 2014.

By 1962 I owned a camera and used it to photograph our neighborhood. I walked north on Marquette Street and took snapshots of the Levetzow’s holiday display. They owned Model Dairy Company and at Christmas filled their whole yard with lighted Christmas decorations. On the southwest corner of their house was a large crèche. To its right was a lighted display of Santa, his sleigh, and reindeer. We viewed them as an affluent family, such affluence being on conspicuous display at the holidays. They had a kid-sized model of their dairy delivery van, although none of us local kids got to drive it.

I photographed the holiday display at the house across the street to the south. This was a rental through which families moved frequently. Eventually, a young Joe Whitty and his family moved there to work at the nearby Mercy Hospital bakery. He later opened his own chain of pizza and ice cream restaurants called Happy Joe’s.

We posed for pictures with my film camera. I gave more thought to each frame than I do today because the results were not immediately available. There were only so many shots on a roll so I felt I had to get the framing right before exposing film. It was a process of experimentation and expense.

Having a camera was complicated because one needed film and never knew how photographs would come out when taking them. Developing film could take a while, depending upon when the entire roll would be exposed, and when one could get it to the drug store to be developed. Photographs were special. I possessed a sense they would have enduring value.

There is a photo of me in my altar boy cassock and surplus, one of us kids bowling, and many posed photos of all of us in the foyer. One favorite foyer photo is of Mother and Father dressed up in costumes to go out on New Year’s Eve in 1962. The following January I captured my sister’s birthday party during which we all danced the twist. Mother took some of those shots. My parents had just begun listening to long-playing records at home and had copies of popular LPs by twist artists like Chubby Checker and Fats Domino.

In 1963 I began buying color film. Pictures survived… of Easter, my sister’s first communion, a trip to the park, Father standing next to the wrecked 1959 Ford. Mostly they were posed photos signifying a special event.

Using a camera was an inexpensive way to have fun. Because the process took so long, it seemed more creative: requiring thought, editing, and an ability to understand the viewer and how it would relate to the finished exposure.

My grandmother was an influence in my photography. She purchased inexpensive cameras at the drug store and used them to record moments with the family. The desire to pose and capture a photo was something creative I didn’t understand at the time. We were plain folk and when we got dressed for church, or to attend an event, it was a big deal. Grandmother wanted to capture those moments on film. It’s a natural impulse that presents an interpretation of who we were. Of course, we always wanted to put the best foot forward in these constructed frames.

Because photography was a technology with numerous steps, and there was a cost of film and prints, I don’t have many photos from my earliest days. However, I have a lot by comparison. The ones that survive tell me who I was and inform our family culture. They are an important part of remembering who we were. From that early time I began thinking about how to narrate my life using a camera. There is a direct creative thread running from 1962 to the present and spun on my use of cameras.

Categories
Living in Society

A Movie Weekend

Full moon through maple tree, March 6, 2015.

The atmosphere was particularly clear Saturday night. Moon bright, stars twinkling. A fine time to be outdoors despite the cold. On Sunday, for entertainment, I read The Movie Ad Book by Malcolm Vance, a book with 120 full page, color reproductions of classic motion picture posters.

My canon of movies makes a short list. Chronologically, World War II movies I saw in downtown Davenport were formative. Saturday morning I picked up the city bus near the hospital where I was born and rode downtown to pay my newspaper bill. After hanging out for a couple of hours, when theaters opened, I saw matinees of The Great Escape, The Longest Day, and other films about the war. I grew up in a culture where World War II veterans were everywhere.

Grandmother took the whole family to see The Sound of Music during 1965. She particularly identified with the Maria Rainer character. Of course, this was also a film about World War II. It was the only time I remember going to a movie theater with her.

I saw early James Bond films in Davenport, beginning with Goldfinger, released in 1964. Dr. No and From Russia With Love made return engagements, so I was able to see them. Even then we expected all of Ian Fleming’s Bond books to be made into films. The last Saturday matinee of a Bond film I saw was Thunderball, released in 1965. It was a special time for a young newspaper boy.

I have little remembrance of films I saw from beginning High School in 1966 until returning from military service in 1979. I remember seeing The Graduate in a Quad Cities theater, likely in 1968. While serving in Germany, our battalion showed Patton repeatedly while we were in the field. It was always a challenge to keep projector light bulbs going because generator surges caused a couple to burn out during each screening. In garrison I remember seeing Superman with Christopher Reeves during its initial release, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind at a theater in Wiesbaden, dubbed in German and subtitled in English. During a trip to Holland, I saw Annie Hall in an Amsterdam theater in English with Dutch subtitles while the buddies I traveled with went to the red light district.

When I returned to the United States, I saw Apocalypse Now which made an impression on me. So did The Deer Hunter. When I entered university for my graduate degree in American Studies, I became completely absorbed in seeing every possible film. It was a way of understanding film as an expressive art form to enhance my writing. I sought every film by Rainer Maria Fassbinder who was at his peak creativity. I saw most of his feature film movies during that period. During our first year of marriage I saw the entire Berlin Alexanderplatz series. It was surprising when he died in summer 1982 of a drug overdose.

The first time I did anything with my future spouse, we went to see Blade Runner in 1982. We also saw Tootsie and Out of Africa in theaters. Most of the long-form movies we saw were on VHS and CDs checked out from a library or commercial video rental store. For a while we made movie-watching a regular family event at home. Of the films seen during that period, I would watch the first film in The Matrix series again. Another keeper is Michael Moore’s Roger & Me about the auto industry in Flint Michigan. I spent a lot of time in Flint when I worked for a transportation firm.

Of the 120 movie posters in Vance’s book, I saw about 30. I was serious about film study in graduate school, but the 40 years since then eroded my interest. These days, I can hardly picture myself sitting still 120 minutes at a time to watch a movie. I’ll be sending my copy of The Movie Ad Book to Goodwill to be recycled with another reader. It was a fun Sunday thinking about films and how they affected my life.

Categories
Living in Society

To Those Tinkering With Voting

Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com

Like in every year since 2017, when Republicans gained majorities in both chambers of the Iowa legislature, there is a voting bill this session, House Study Bill 697. A person could set their clock by this behavior. The impact of the annual process is to make elections more difficult for Iowans. Changing the duties of the Iowa Secretary of State and how elections are conducted is a feature, not a bug, of Republican governance.

While the majority party continues to ratchet down election restrictions, they apparently don’t understand that whatever scheme they devise will serve Democratic success in re-taking control of the legislature. Democrats did required analysis of the election process and designed the work needed to win during the 2008 election when Barack Obama won Iowa. They can and eventually will do it again.

Republicans can dink around all they want. It won’t mean diddly-squat when the Iowa population moves to replace them. The movement will be bigger than only what Democrats want. I believe the day is approaching.

There was drama during the Iowa House State Government Subcommittee over House Study Bill 697, as Trish Nelson pointed out. Rep. Amy Nielsen and Chair Bobby Kaufmann entered a heated exchange about the bill which ended with the two Democrats on the committee, Nielsen and Rep. Adam Zabner, walking out before the subcommittee meeting finished, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette. The subcommittee advanced the bill to the full committee in their absence. On Thursday, the full committee approved the measure.

Democrats have it wrong if their response to yearly voting restrictions is to bemoan loss of the halcyon years of the Obama campaigns when we could elect Democrats to statewide positions and award our electoral college votes to a Democrat. The kind of work we need to do is not complicated. Figure out who in the Iowa population will vote for our candidates, understand the new rules for voting, and persuade our people to vote. Strategies like this hopefully exist, are kept secret, and have already been implemented by the Iowa Democratic Party.

All you Republicans who are tinkering with the voting process, beware. Iowans are are coming to replace you and it may be as soon as in November.

I hope everyone reading this post is already helping Democrats get elected in November. The time to engage is now.