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.
The Iowa Family Policy Center has begun to intervene in the special election in House District 90, and Iowans for Tax Relief has upped its ante with a new television ad. Both groups are supporting Republican candidate Stephen Burgmeier.
The Iowa Family Policy Center’s political outreach arm has sent a vitriolic, four-page letter to voters on Burgmeier’s behalf, mostly focusing on accusations that Democrat Curt Hanson’s campaign is being funded by “out-of-state pro-homosexual groups” who are “clamoring” to impose their “radical agenda” on Iowans. Because neither candidate has had to file a campaign finance disclosure report, this claim cannot be verified. (Even after a report is filed, it’s not like it will display donors’ sexual orientations next to their names.)
The Burgmeier campaign’s Web site also now lists a political operative who has been connected to the Iowa Family Policy Center as one of its volunteer contacts.
Mark Doland, who is also pastor of a church in Mahaska County, was a 2008 campaign staffer for former state Rep. Danny Carroll (R-Grinnell), who wrote the pro-Burgmeier letter on IFPC’s behalf. Doland’s email address, as listed on the Burgmeier site, is an acronym for “Let Us Vote,” the slogan of opponents of the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage last year. Because campaign finance reports haven’t been filed, it is unclear whether the conservative operative is being paid (and who is paying him). On his own site, Doland says he is IFPC’s “Field Coordinator.”
For Iowans for Tax Relief’s part, the group had already supplied two staffers to the Burgmeier campaign, and now they have released a new television ad attacking Hanson.
The ITR ad is striking not for its message, which is fairly conventional, but for its inexplicably over-the-top yonic imagery. If you don’t know what yonic means, watch the ad below and take a guess:
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