Just eight days after it was introduced in the Iowa Legislature, a bill that would make it harder to vote but easier to remove people from voting rolls, and creates new criminal liability for local election officials, received its final approval. On Wednesday night, the Republican-controlled Iowa House of Representatives sent the bill to Gov. […]
Donald Trump
Posted inCommunity/News
‘It’s voter suppression’: Iowa Republicans target voting access, citing Trumpian election conspiracy theories
At least 33 state legislatures around the country, most of them controlled by Republicans, are working on bills that restrict voting. Iowa is one of them. “These bills are an unmistakable response to the unfounded and dangerous lies about fraud that followed the 2020 election,“ the Brennan Center for Justice said in a report on […]
Posted inCommunity/News
State Sen. Jim Carlin, a hardcore Trump supporter, becomes the first declared candidate in the 2022 U.S. Senate race
The 2022 U.S. Senate election in Iowa now has its first official candidate. On Monday, Republican state Sen. Jim Carlin announced he is running for the seat that Chuck Grassley has held since 1981. Carlin has served in the Iowa State Senate, representing part of Woodbury County, since winning a special election in 2017. He […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowan’s ‘menacing’ behavior in the Capitol illustrates how much worse the insurrection could have been
A short video captured inside the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6 shows perhaps the most heroic (and heroically restrained) performance by a police officer on that day, as well as the criminal trespassing of an Iowan on the halls of Congress. The officer is Eugene Goodman of the U.S. Capitol Police, the Washington Post […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘The Republican Party is a cult’: Trump challenger Joe Walsh drops out of 2020 race after being booed during Iowa Caucus
Joe Walsh (not the Eagles guitarist; the other one) announced on Friday he is dropping out the 2020 race for president. Anyone not following politics very closely can be excused for not realizing Joe Walsh was running for president, or knowing who Joe Walsh is.
Posted inCommunity/News
Mark Sanford, who was running against Donald Trump for the 2020 GOP nomination, ends his long-shot campaign after 65 days
Mark Sanford, one of three candidates running against President Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination, announced on Tuesday he is dropping out of the race. The former South Carolina congressman made his announcement during a press conference in New Hampshire, where he had focused his long-shot campaign.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Video premiere and interview: The Awful Purdies, ‘45’
Because “45” has a simple, catchy melody, its easy to overlook the levels of depth that make it great. The melody is accompanied by a complex arrangement of acoustic elements, one of the hallmarks of the Awful Purdies’ sound. It unfolds into Katie Roche’s vocals and includes textured and layered harmonies that echo and support them.
Posted inCommunity/News
Charles Grassley’s legacy is in the courts
Chuck Grassley has been in elective office longer than most Americans have been alive. Since first being sworn in as an Iowa legislator in 1959, he’s continually been in power at either the state or federal level, but nothing in that long career has been as important as what he’s done as chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee over the past three years.
Posted inCommunity/News
Mitt Romney talks favorite meats, stirs memories of his Iowa donut debacle
Failed 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney is currently running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Utah, which he currently describes as his home state. (Romney was born and raised in Michigan, served as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and has spent much of his time at his home in Southern […]
Posted inOpinion
Democracy in Crisis: ‘Bloodsport’ and our president’s dickpunching politics
It makes cosmic sense that “Bloodsport” — which was released 30 years ago on Feb. 26 — would be Trump’s favorite movie. It says something about political discourse too: The turning point involves its hero, Frank Dux (Van Damme), proudly punching someone squarely in the dick.
Posted inOpinion
Democracy in Crisis: 10 of Trump’s insane tweets
I got drunk recently and read all 2,735 tweets that Donald Trump had written since the election in the hopes that Trump’s Twitter feed, collected and searchable on trumptwitterarchive.com, might be a good way to get a sense of the horrors we’ve endured.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Protest songs from across the nation testify to one year of President Trump
In recognition that one year has passed since the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, members of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia banded together to commemorate this point in history. Baynard Woods’ most recent Democracy in Crisis column was written for that occasion. Woods also compiled a list of protest songs, submitted by AAN members.
