The appearance of tall, yellow wildflowers is a sign summer is ending. By the calendar there are three weeks of summer left, yet the Labor Day weekend marks the end of trips and vacations, and the beginning of school. For some, school already started.
I finished planting in the garden and focused on closing out the last vegetables. I preserved enough tomatoes, peppers, pickles and greens. All that remains is finishing the plots, clearing them, and in October planting garlic.
Perhaps as a closing to summer, President Joe Biden gave a speech last night. I gave it a full B grade, although it is definitely worth hearing. If readers are so inclined, here it is.
Drought-stressed corn crop in Cedar County, Iowa, 2012.
2022 has provided evidence in plain sight of the consequences of burning fossil fuels. The Greenland ice sheet is melting and expected to raise global sea levels by a foot. Such melting is already in motion and even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere today, it would have no effect on this destruction. A melting Greenland ice sheet cools the Northern Atlantic Ocean, which in turn slows the Atlantic Gulf Stream circulation and could lead to climate disruption on a massive scale.
From the American West to Europe to China, rivers are drying up. Our oceans are warming, causing fish and water-bound mammals to migrate to cooler places, disrupting fishing stocks. The upper Midwest is home to the largest global concentration of field corn. Continued high temperatures and lack of rainfall are expected to reduce yields. At $6.73 a bushel, corn is now roughly 50% above its 10-year average price.
None of this is good news. It is the truth.
In part, we got ourselves into this situation by ignoring scientists about the dangers of global warming. Here’s some more truth: President Lyndon Johnson, in a Feb. 8, 1965 special message to Congress, warned about build-up of carbon dioxide that scientists recognize today as the primary contributor to global warming.
“Air pollution is no longer confined to isolated places. This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”
There is little an individual can do. A solution will take governments addressing the physics of the issue at the highest level. It has become clear Republicans are the party of the fossil fuel industry and won’t take serious climate action. While some Democrats have fallen under the influence of fossil fuel interests and money, they were able to pass the Inflation Reduction Act which is the first legislation that addresses the climate crisis. We need more legislation to address the climate crisis, and that means electing more Democrats today.
The evidence of global warming is all around us. While everyone should get involved in what has become an obvious, global problem, the path forward in the United States is in retaining a Democratic controlled Congress and Executive Branch. No one wants to change their quality of life. However, life would be much better if we took action to control the changes caused by global warming by engaging in society.
Inside State Senator Kevin Kinney’s barn in rural Johnson County. Photo Credit – Dominic Patafie.
The weather was perfect for a barbecue.
The first large political gathering in our new state senate district took place on Saturday, Aug. 27, in rural Oxford. Kevin Kinney is a full-time farmer seeking re-election to the senate after an incumbent Republican and he were mapped into the same new district by the state legislature. Kinney is running a strong campaign.
I volunteered to help with the event, arriving two hours before the starting time. The Kinney family had already done most of the set up, so I was able to take a walk around the farm and talk to the senator. The farm runs a cow-calf operation with 40 brood cows. We discussed the configuration of his corn and bean planter. I also asked some questions about the corn crop using this photo on my mobile device. Corn is drying out.
Field corn.
State Auditor Rob Sand was the featured guest. When he wasn’t speaking to the group, he socialized, took selfies with attendees, and distributed bumper stickers that said, “Bowhunter. State Auditor. Rob Sand Finds Bucks.” Lieutenant Governor candidate Eric Van Lancker was added to the speaker lineup. In addition to giving a short speech, he spent most of the event socializing with attendees. Both Sand and Van Lancker were present for the duration of the event.
My assigned duties were at the registration table where I greeted almost everyone who attended. Getting to know people is one of the reasons I attend political events, so it was a perfect assignment. A number of Johnson County Democrats I’ve known for decades came out. No one did a head count, yet I estimate 150 or so attendees.
Overflow parking with cattle at the Senator Kinney Summer Barbecue Bash, Aug. 27, 2022.
By all accounts, the food was good. Being mostly vegetarian, I skipped the meal except for a couple of slices of watermelon and a cookie. There was plenty to eat. After the speeches and meal were finished, people lingered while drinking beverages from large coolers and talking in groups. It was the kind of event that is becoming increasingly rare in Iowa Democratic politics. As I mentioned to people when they signed in, it was a great day for it.
If re-elected, Kevin Kinney would be the only Democratic, full-time farmer in the Iowa Senate.
As the fall campaign approaches, supporters of Elle Wyant, Democrat for Iowa House District 91, are in the local newspapers with letters of support. Here are two examples from this week’s publications.
Vote Wyant for District 91
At the May 12, 2022 League of Women Voters District 91 Candidate Forum, Brad Sherman said the “green movement” is fueled by socialism, and he said, “One of these days the plants are going to rise up and say they don’t have any carbon dioxide to breathe. Then it will all go the other way.” His comments show an arrogant and dismissive attitude toward the real dangers of climate change and toward science in general. Vote for Elle Wyant if you want legislation based on scientific reality instead of extreme ideology.
Glenn Goetz, Amana, Iowa County Democrats
~ Published online in the Marengo Pioneer Republican, Aug. 23, 2022
Wyant vs. Sherman: sensible vs. extreme
Iowa County is peppered with yard signs that say “Brad Sherman Freedom.” Sherman’s Libations for Liberty support this quote from Benjamin Rush: “A simple democracy… is one of the greatest evils.”
Sherman signed a resolution stating there was widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election (there was not). Sherman is angry that Trump was unable to overturn a free and fair election to stay in power. He is against democracy. He wants to keep Trump in power against the will of the voters. How can he claim to be a champion of freedom? Is this the person we want to represent us?
Elle Wyant is running on a platform that includes education, economic development and equity. She has the sensibility that comes from being part of a fifth generation Iowa County farm family. Vote for Elle Wyant, Democratic candidate for House District 91.
Betty Stiefel, Victor, Iowa Count Democrats.
~ Published in the print edition of the Williamsburg Journal Tribune, Aug. 24, 2022
As daylight moves toward summer’s end, the amount of information available has increased dramatically. After a busy Monday, I have to stop the input and process what I’ve gained. In an ever-forward life, that’s hard to do.
In the next township over, one of the Iowa CO2 pipelines is planned to cross Johnson County. The public debate is whether private companies should be able to use eminent domain provisions of the law the way a government would to run these pipelines. If you got everyone involved in the projects – companies, government, land owners, farmers, and citizens – I’m pretty sure we could agree that these pipelines serve no useful purpose to the environment. During initial rollout of the plans, companies hardly mentioned the environmental impact of CO2 emissions on earth because there are and may be more markets for the commodity. This is mostly about being able to export Iowa ethanol to California, which has stricter air quality regulations than Iowa. Well maybe I’m wrong these folks wouldn’t agree.
In Iowa’s First Congressional District, Republican incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks has defined her campaign as one tapping into a mother lode of money and crazy policies in her national party. In a way this makes the race easier for Democrats as she will be out of touch with what all district residents want and need. It will be harder because of the endless well of dark money in politics agitating everything. Democrat Christina Bohannan is busy doing the work of a candidate all over the district. There is a lot to take in as I plan my engagement in the fall campaign.
I am disengaging in my position as president of our home owners association in a development with a population of about 250 people. Finding people to be on our all volunteer board has been challenging. I served on the board in three different periods since first being elected in 1994. There are real responsibilities with managing our public water system, roads, trash and recycling removal, and a separate wastewater treatment plant. We kept the board fully staffed since I returned in 2017, yet few showed interest in leading the effort. Both managing the activities and finding a replacement will take time I’d rather be spending elsewhere.
Our family decided to become home owners. We built new in 1993 and 29 years later, a lot needs attention. Lilac bushes planted in 1994 are now overgrown. Repeated straight line winds and a derecho knocked down trees and branches. We are at 12 years since last roofing the house. Major appliances need upgrade. The list of home repairs and upgrades is pretty long. We have to be ready to slow down, and that means making the house more livable as we age. We tend to avoid these projects because we don’t want to think about them and how we finance them on a fixed income. We have to get going or the to-do list will only continue to grow.
Seems like I spent a lot of my life developing game plans and this is no different. I know enough to stop the input of new projects and focus on optimizing the use of time and resources. I’ll give it until Labor Day. If planning goes on past then, it may drive me crazy.
The conventional wisdom about Iowa’s First Congressional District election is incumbent Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks has the advantage over Democrat Christina Bohannan. This was borne out by polling sponsored by the Bohannan campaign.
In a Change Research poll conducted June 30-July 4, the results confirmed Miller-Meeks enjoyed a one point advantage at 39-38 percent. This poll is getting stale, and with more than 20 percent of those polled not for either candidate, it is too early to make much of this one point lead. As summer ends with the last long weekend before the election, where do things stand?
Miller-Meeks first.
At her inaugural tailgate, where she announced her candidacy for re-election, Miller-Meeks assembled a typical cast of Republican characters.
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas joined an array of familiar Iowa Republican faces at Streb Construction to support the freshman congresswoman as she announced her intent to seek a second term representing Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District in 2022. Besides Cotton, who has become a regular visitor to Iowa, U.S. Reps. Ashley Hinson and Randy Feenstra, former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, former Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, and Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann tried to fire up a crowd of about 200.
As Miller-Meeks spent time in the 117th Congress, she got to know more Republicans there and began sounding like someone other than the person I met during her early campaigns and heard speak when she was Director of the Iowa Department of Public Health. More than any politician I’ve known, the conversion to Washington, D.C. insider was fast and complete. She sounds less like someone legislating on behalf of Iowans and more like someone who took a crazy pill.
As her re-election campaign shifts into gear after the Labor Day weekend, one of her first campaign events will be another football tailgate in Iowa City, this time with U.S. Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who is the author of the Republican plan to rescue America. Scott wrote, among other things, these two sentences into his plan, “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” Miller-Meeks tapped into the mainline of radical right wing Republicanism.
If it wasn’t known already, at a Thursday, Aug. 18 event in Jasper County, Miller-Meeks made her complete alignment with the 45th president clear. She participated in a town hall meeting hosted by America First Agenda with panelists Linda McMahon, former Administrator of the Small Business Administration, Doug Hoelscher, former assistant to the 45th president, and Matthew Whitaker, former Acting U.S. Attorney General (same person who attended her first tailgate). America First Agenda is an organization that supports the 45th president and his chosen candidates. He even gave the first keynote address for the group. The Jasper County event was the first stop in a nationwide rollout of candidate support by the organization.
Miller-Meeks is a Trump Republican and undoubtedly adheres to the policy statement of America First Agenda. These are hardly Iowa values, yet the Republican seems convinced embracing them will lead to re-election.
Christina Bohannan is different. She is a Democrat. I want to make clear that I am not a campaign insider. The majority of what they ask of me is for financial donations, occasional event invitations, and even less frequently for canvassing help. I am not active in Bohannan’s campaign the way I was and am in other campaigns. I offer no exclusive insider information in this post.
Bohannan check-boxed the summer with appearances throughout the district at Democratic gatherings, parades, meet and greet events, fund raisers, visits to county fairs, a State Fair appearance flipping pork burgers, voter canvassing, and other typical campaign events. Bohannan acknowledges she is behind in fund raising (she recently had $1.27 million cash on hand to Miller-Meeks’ $2.66 million), yet believes they have enough money to meet campaign goals. This is all fine, and necessary.
The issue Bohannan faces is threading the needle of support for President Joe Biden’s policies with sufficient distancing from him to counter Republican attacks of being a “Biden Democrat.” While I like Biden Democrats, when I say it, it means something different from Republicans who speak in dog-whistle language. Republicans have been relentless in pursuit of this attack meme.
Here is a link to a WHBF interview with an example of how Bohannan responded to a direct question, “Will you run on Joe Biden’s record or run away from it? Where do you disagree with the administration when it comes to policy, if at all?” I like her answers. She refused to accept the interviewer’s framing despite his showing more persistence on the point than most journalists. Attempting to re-direct attention from Biden to Miller-Meeks is a solid response for Bohannan. It needs work because she comes across as dodging the question more than getting us to focus on her opponent. If she doesn’t address her clear support for Joe Biden more directly, the meme will stick.
Having a Trump minion in the Congress is not good for me or for Iowa. Because Republicans need to retain the seat to gain a majority in the U.S. House, they have and will invest big in Iowa’s First District. I believe Christina Bohannan is up to the challenge yet it will be a long, hard road to election day. Bohannan can use our help. Click here to learn how you can join the effort.
I’ve been with retired Admiral Michael Franken enough to know he would make an excellent U.S. Senator. My comparison is with Tom Harkin, with whom I also spent time. Harkin was arguably Iowa’s best senator to date. If elected, Franken could also be one of the great U.S. Senators from Iowa.
Franken and I both served in the military. In my conversations with him – about his leaving the Navy after the election of the 45th president, about how he would control the military budget by knowing where the pork is hidden, and about ending the nuclear arms race – he is much like me. Many of us seek that in a candidate.
What makes him different from typical politicians is Franken is doing the work of a campaign by visiting all parts of Iowa and speaking with everyday people instead of to the limited network of party activists. He is positioning himself to represent all Iowans, something his opponent has forgotten in his many years of living in Washington, D.C.
Franken is doing things candidates are expected to do, flipping pork burgers at the State Fair, walking in parades, shaking hands with people wherever he goes, and considering a constituent question before he answers it.
Instead of electing Chuck Grassley again, we should send Michael Franken to the U.S. Senate because he is the best person for the job.
~ First published in The Little Village Magazine on Aug. 18, 2022.
These days it is a debate whether to answer the telephone when an unknown number rings. Monday I picked up a phone call from the 641 area code, which runs from Ottumwa to Mason City. It was a pollster administering poll number 19985 IAHD091. How do I know that code? The text message the firm sent me 15 minutes after I completed the telephone interview led to a Survey Monkey poll with that number as the header. It was the Republicans calling about House District 91.
I’m still curious about local politics, and the kind of questions asked during a telephone poll can be revealing of the funder’s tactics. I felt like a miner striking pay dirt during the 1849 California Gold Rush.
It is common practice for Iowa House Republicans to poll a number of districts in late summer of an election year, usually at least 10-15 districts, according to a person familiar with the practice. House District 91 is an open seat after redistricting and leans Republican. Iowa Republicans follow a well-developed and targeted playbook to maintain their majority in the state house. They don’t want to leave anything to chance when it comes to picking up an open seat, so putting a poll in the field is an inexpensive investment.
The telephone survey seemed different from the online survey sent via text message, although they were likely the same questions asked differently. The main give-away that the poll was from the Republicans was the issue list I had to use to decide which would be most important in deciding my vote for state government: the Second Amendment and gun rights; border security; public school education; pro-life and family values; inflation and the cost of living; gun control measures; crime and public safety; women’s reproductive rights; government spending; and healthcare. Some of these are written in dog-whistle language understood without an interpreter only by Republicans who speak it. I picked public school education because of these so-called issues it is the one that garners the largest part of the state budget.
The survey began by asking how I would vote (probably in-person at the polls on election day), whether Iowa was on the right or wrong track (mostly the wrong track), and if I would vote Republican or Democratic for Congress (definitely Democratic), the pollster name-checked, in this order, Elle Wyant (they pronounced Elle with two syllables rather than the normal single one), Joe Biden, Brad Sherman and Kim Reynolds.
I strongly support Deidre DeJear for governor and Elle Wyant for state representative. I voted for Joe Biden in 2020 rather than that other guy, I told the pollster. I thought they snickered after saying I think of myself as independent. We got back on track when I characterized my views toward politics and government as somewhat liberal.
Whoever this person with a strong non-Midwestern accent was, they were likely doing a job for which they needed the compensation. I doubt they were represented by a union. I’m more curious about how they got my name and phone number, although the Republican voter tracking software is legendary for aggregating information from multiple sources.
My takeaways? The pollster was not trolling me. Republicans have a well-oiled machine that will tell them where their problems lie in winning House District 91. They will adjust their plan accordingly after reviewing the poll results. They are a serious, formidable opponent, even if their candidate is a fringe preacher in a non-denominational Christian church who puts his campaign barn sign on the Interstate next to those supporting the 2020 Republican candidate for president. Yes, one is still there.
When I was campaign manager for a Democratic house candidate in 2012, the state party did a district poll. The call I got after they read it was something like, “spend all your time in the non-Johnson County parts of the district.” It wasn’t specific guidance nor was it particularly helpful as while we abandoned liberal parts of the district, the Republican made inroads there. He won enough votes to put him over the top during the general election.
Polls are another piece of information about the competitive environment in a house race. I welcomed the chance to participate for the information it gave me. Will they count my results twice, since I answered via telephone and via Survey Monkey? Probably not. Can Elle Wyant win as state representative? I hope so.
There are 84 days until the polls close on election day.
On Aug. 14, 1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. FDR is rightly credited with leading the United States out of the Depression and re-framing the relationship between government and society. It is hard to imagine what modern life would be like without The New Deal.
By the time I made my first payroll contribution to Social Security in 1968, the program was stable. One hoped to be able to earn a pension or save money for retirement but I didn’t know how that would unfold during my work life. The job I held as a stock boy in the drug department of an early big box store wasn’t intended to pay for the retirement of a 16-year old entering the work force. I knew then Social Security would be there for me when I retired, no matter the financial outcome of a lifetime of work. This freed me to do other things, like being a teenager.
As I wrote in 2017, the Social Security Administration is currently doing fine. It follows a plan that begins to deplete the trust fund in 2034. In the current Trustees Report, that date holds true. The problem is longer term.
Social Security and Medicare both face long-term financing shortfalls under currently scheduled benefits and financing. Costs of both programs will grow faster than gross domestic product (GDP) through the mid-2030s primarily due to the rapid aging of the U.S. population. Medicare costs will continue to grow faster than GDP through the late 2070s due to projected increases in the volume and intensity of services provided.
A summary of the 2022 Annual Reports from the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees, Social Security Administration website.
The Republican plan to address this can be found in U.S. Senator Rick Scott’s plan to rescue America, in this sentence, “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”
When asked about sunsetting Social Security and Medicare, Senator Scott said, “No one that I know of wants to sunset Medicare or Social Security, but what we’re doing is we don’t even talk about it. Medicare goes bankrupt in four years. Social Security goes bankrupt in 12 years. I think we ought to figure out how we preserve those programs.”
The fact is Democrats are talking about it and have introduced appropriate legislation to address the long-term problems presented by the Trustees. For Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, fixing the program is straight forward, “As Republicans try to phase out Social Security and raise taxes on more than 70 million hardworking Americans, I’m working with Senator Sanders to expand Social Security and extend its solvency by making the wealthy pay their fair share, so everyone can retire with dignity.” Warren and Sanders introduced The Social Security Expansion Act in the U.S. Senate.
The weasel-words of Senator Scott are evident. Rather than offer solutions to long-term problems, he speaks vaguely about the people he knows and what they believe. The only purpose this serves is to raise doubts about choices pensioners like me made over the last 54 years. It is a scare tactic from Republicans’ long list of them.
As much as I’d like to see Democrats and Republicans engage together in solving the long-term issues with Social Security and Medicare, I don’t think that’s possible in today’s divided Congress. As President Joe Biden has demonstrated with a series of recently passed legislation, finding common ground and passing laws is possible even in the toxic political climate of Washington, D.C. We need to do more of it.
Pensioners and other senior citizens vote, so I’m confident Social Security will be addressed at the ballot box. Just give us the facts, without your political spin, and we can make a good decision. Today we appear to be in the spin cycle.
Sorting the facts from bogus assertions is an ongoing issue. Democrats have a good story to tell about expanding Social Security. We need to bring Republicans in, if we can, and solve the long-term problems. If we can’t bring them in, we must solve them on our own.
Democracy can be subverted by a minority and that’s what the radical, conservative right is doing, according to David Pepper, former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party. The right realizes their views are unpopular on abortion, gun control, climate change, equal representation under the law, the economy, and other issues. Because they can’t win federal elections on their positions, their goal is to tear down democracy and the institutions built since the formation of our Democratic Republic in 1788 when the U.S. Constitution was ratified by the states. Our politics and our democracy are increasingly unstable.
People in a position to know remind us more often of threats to Democracy. What will it take to activate voters who normally sit out the midterms, voting only in presidential election years? As author Jane Mayer, Pepper and historian Michael Beschloss remind us, a lot of the action to subvert our democracy is happening at the state level. That’s true in Iowa as well as in other Republican-controlled states.
According to Pew Research, the economy was by far the most important issue to voters during the 2020 election, followed by healthcare. You wouldn’t know that in Iowa. Republicans seek to dismantle public schools, remove regulation from agricultural and other business operations, and rig the economy so it favors large-scale agricultural interests like those investing in Carbon Capture and Sequestration. The culture wars are in full engagement as Republicans pursue removing a woman’s right to control her body, transfer school funding from public to private schools, and attempts to regulate school curriculum to present a limited view of our history and lives in society. One could argue, and I do, that during the midterm elections we have to pay attention and address this radical governance.
Historian Michael Beschloss posted the following on Twitter Aug. 7:
Beschloss’ list is good and here’s how I would “do what I can.”
Supreme Court: Many of us realized the U.S. Supreme Court was an overarching issue during the 2016 presidential issue. It ranked highly in 2020. The damage of the 45th president appointing three young, conservative justices recommended by the right wing Federalist Society is done. There is no undoing a lifetime appointment to the judiciary in today’s political climate. We should watch what’s going on in the Supreme Court and support election of a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate and a Democratic president.
State governors, legislature, secretaries of state and election officials: This is the ball game in 2022. The prospects of electing Democratic majorities in the Iowa Senate and House of Representatives is bleak. In the nine Johnson County precincts in Iowa House District 91, there are only three volunteer precinct captains, including me and the county auditor. In a better situation, we would have nine. There are 10,759 registered voters in the district in Johnson County, 10,824 in Iowa County. Of these, 6,357 are Democratic or 29 percent. Republicans have a 1,717 registration advantage, which means Democrats must get out a lot of non-Democratic votes to elect our candidates. As I’ve written before, our gubernatorial candidate is running behind in the recent Iowa poll, and in fundraising. A focus on voter registration and contacting the right section of the 71 percent of the electorate that is not Democrat is what’s needed.
Congress in 2022: Our first congressional district has in Christina Bohannan a candidate who is working. Whether she can win is an open question, and polling is conflicted about where she stands. The campaign has done some outreach yet what I can offer is to include her when canvassing in my Iowa House District. In retired Admiral Michael Franken we have the strongest candidate for U.S. Senate since the last time Tom Harkin ran. I know Franken better than most Senate candidates I supported in recent years. He appears to be doing the right things to increase his name recognition. He says voters are weary of Grassley. Because of his long Navy experience most Iowans could view him favorably. We need to get the word out.
Presidency in 2024: I don’t expect Joe Biden to announce whether he will run for president in 2024 until after the midterm elections. If he runs, I will support him. He has arguably done the best job, in terms of passing legislation, of any recent president. More of the same is fine by me if he’s up to it. If Biden doesn’t run, it is a jump ball. I like Kamala Harris as vice president. I don’t believe the nomination should just be handed to her if Biden doesn’t run.
When we break political activism down like this, it is easier to get a grip on what is possible for one person to do to save our democracy. Save it, we must.
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