On Wednesday, Gov. Kim Reynolds announced the appointment of Judge Susan Christensen of Harlan to the Iowa Supreme Court. In her brief remarks introducing Christensen during a press event Wednesday afternoon, Reynolds presented Christensen as an outsider who will bring to the court a point of view not found in the state’s elite legal circles. […]
Donald Trump may occasionally forget Rep. Rod Blum’s name, but the president’s reelection campaign committee definitely knows his name. Blum, who represents Iowa’s 1st Congressional District which includes Cedar Rapids, is one of 100 Republican candidates who have received the maximum amount of money the law allows as a campaign donation from Donald J. Trump For President, Inc. […]
On Friday, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate issued a statement explaining his office was not encouraging county-level election officials to ignore a court order suspending parts of Iowa’s 2017 voter ID law. The statement was necessary, because on Thursday a top elections official from the Secretary of State’s Office (SOS) told a meeting of […]
The Iowa Department of Public Safety issued an unusual press release on Friday, in an effort to reassure people that the state is not experiencing a sudden increase in missing young people. According to the press release, “The number of missing juveniles reported in recent weeks is in line with historical numbers.” […]
President Donald Trump’s Thursday visit to Northeast Iowa Community College in Peosta, Iowa, followed a familiar script. The president’s remarks were rambling and dishonest (on everything from the U.S. trade deficit with Canada to Terry Branstad’s gubernatorial career), and his preening self-praise was matched by blatant flattery from Republicans in attendance, including Gov. Kim Reynolds […]
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller has joined 16 other state attorneys general in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration treatment of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Seattle, seeks an immediate injunction to end the “Trump Administration’s practice of refusing entry to asylum applicants who present at […]
Two months after the Republican majority in the Iowa legislature cut Attorney General Tom Miller’s budget by $600,000 to punish the attorney general for his opposition to policies of the Trump administration, Miller is pushing back against a policy change by the U.S. Department of Education […]
On Friday, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced an indictment against 12 Russian military intelligence agents for hacking the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the 2016 presidential election. The 11-count indictment includes charges of conspiracy against the United States, money laundering, as well as attempts to […]
Former Iowa governor Robert Ray died on Sunday. Ray, a Republican, was widely admired across the political spectrum during his five consecutive terms as governor, from 1969 to 1983. The 89-year-old Ray died of natural causes at the Wesley Acres care facility in Des Moines, where he had lived in recent years, The Des Moines […]
In response to questions about Rep. Steve King’s latest anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim comments, Gov. Kim Reynolds tried to downplay her connection to the western Iowa congressman on Friday. “He is one of over 4,000 honorary chairs in my campaign,” Reynolds said during her appearance on Iowa Press, an Iowa Public Television public affairs show. Even […]
A new report from a United Way research project found that 457,223 households in Iowa were “struggling to afford basic necessities” in 2016, the most recent year for which researchers have data. According to the report, that represents a 27 percent increase in the number of struggling households since 2010. The United Way project is […]
Like many Iowans, the national media has grown so used to Rep. Steve King tweeting racist, xenophobic or just odd things that it takes a special tweet by King to attract attention. The eight-term Western Iowa congressman managed to serve up such a tweet on Tuesday. On its surface this tweet isn’t as arresting as his Monday tweet in which he decried a Swedish youth soccer program’s effort to accommodate players who don’t eat pork as a sign of that rightwing fantasy “the Muslim conquest of Europe,” while at the same time promoting Iowa’s pork industry.
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