Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Tis the season for year in review countdowns, and over at Political Fallout T.M. Lindsey has taken a look back at 2008′s best “nontroversies.” Those are the big stories that were really only important becasue we media types said they were. Luckily, most of these stories went away fairly quickly so we could move on to real news (or more likely, the next nontroversy… they are way more fun).
Unfortunately a number of gotcha moments only became controversial when the media, like blood-deprived leeches, clung to the nontroversy and spun it through its continuous loop of 24-hours news, which only contains an estimated 30 minutes of new news according to a recent Political Fallout study.
And what was the bottom feeder of the nontroversy list? How about Iowa’s First Lady getting caught violating the controversial smoking ban her husband signed into law? That story sent everyone’s outrage meter into the red before disapearing back into the abyss.
While the passage of the public smoking ban may have been controversial — given Gov. Culver other addiction: gambling revenues (Hmmm…I wonder if gaming lobbyists get the same discount on the Knappster’s condominiums?) – catching his mate, Mari Culver, smoking in a state-owned vehicle is by no means as controversial as the media and some Republican lawmakers made it out to be.
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