“I better not say I’m ready to answer your questions, because I don’t know what you’re going to ask,” Sen. Chuck Grassley said at the beginning of his telephone interview with Dr. Bob Leonard on KNIA/KRLS, the local news radio station for Knoxville, Pella and Indianola. It seemed like a good-natured joke when Grassley said […]
President Donald Trump
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As McConnell calls Jan. 6 ‘a violent insurrection,’ Grassley and Ernst avoid giving direct answers on the issue dividing Republicans
The Republican National Committee’s attempt to whitewash the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol as “legitimate political discourse” while condemning two Trump-critical party members has led to pushback from GOP senators, Politico reported on Tuesday. That pushback does not include Iowa’s two Republican senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst. The RNC, the governing […]
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Dr. Caitlin Pedati, who oversaw Iowa’s COVID-19 response, gets a new job
Dr. Caitlin Pedati, the former medical director of the Iowa Department of Public Health and state epidemiologist, who oversaw the Reynolds administration’s minimal approach to COVID-19 mitigation, has found a new job. Pedati, who announced in September she would be stepping down from her Iowa positions in “late October” has been hired by the Virginia […]
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Dr. Caitlin Pedati, who has guided Iowa’s COVID-19 response, is leaving her job as IDPH medical director
Dr. Caitlin Pedati, medical director of the Iowa Department of Public Health and the state’s epidemiologist, will be leaving her position in “late October,” the department announced in a news release on Wednesday. According to IDPH, “Dr. Pedati plans to pursue new career opportunities.” Pedati has held her current job since June 2018, but didn’t […]
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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 […]
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‘Total, total shit show’: Grassley and Ernst vote to acquit Trump
On Saturday, seven Republicans joined all 50 Democrats in the U.S. Senate to convict Donald Trump of the one count of inciting an insurrection for which the House of Representatives impeached him during his last weeks in office. Neither Sen. Chuck Grassley nor Sen. Joni Ernst were among the seven Republicans. The 57 to 43 […]
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COVID-19: Biden administration ups Iowa’s vaccine allotment by 16%; Reynolds defends state’s low testing rates
Gov. Kim Reynolds said on Wednesday the Biden administration will be increasing every state’s allotment of COVID-19 vaccine by 16 percent starting next week. “In Iowa, this should equate to an additional 6,300 doses,” the governor said during a news conference. “And they did say that that increased amount is guaranteed for the next three […]
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Ernst wrongly claims a Trump impeachment trial would be unconstitutional
Sen. Joni Ernst said on Tuesday the Senate shouldn’t try Donald Trump, even though he has been impeached by the House of Representatives. “My overall question is: Why are we doing this when the president is out of office tomorrow?” Ernst told reporters in Washington D.C. The House impeached President Trump on Jan. 13 on […]
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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 […]
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‘There must be consequences’: Rep. Cindy Axne calls for Trump’s removal while Iowa’s Republicans in Congress avoid criticizing him
All four members of Iowa’s House of Representatives delegation and both of its senators issued statements condemning the actions of the mob that overran the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. But only one of them actually addressed Donald Trump’s responsibility for inciting an insurrection aimed at stopping the certification of the Electoral College votes and preventing […]
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Sen. Joni Ernst won’t say if she’ll object to certifying Biden’s win; other Iowa Republicans accept Trump’s loss
With less than a day left before Congress is scheduled to certify the votes of the Electoral College, confirming Joe Biden’s win, Sen. Joni Ernst had not yet decided whether she will join Donald Trump’s latest attempt to nullify the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election. “Sen. Ernst is continuing to hear from Iowans […]
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Gov. Reynolds relaxes COVID-19 restrictions while Trump administration cuts Iowa’s allotment of vaccine by 30 percent
At her news conference on Wednesday, Gov. Kim Reynolds highlighted how much virus activity in Iowa has declined since she imposed some new COVID-19 restrictions on Nov. 16, before announcing she was relaxing some of those restrictions. “Bars and restaurants can resume their normal hours of operation,” the governor said. In her Nov. 16 emergency […]
