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.
Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is encouraging her fans to support Terry Branstad in the Republican gubernatorial primary next week. The former Alaska governor posted messages Thursday on Twitter and on Facebook.
At first blush, picking up Palin’s endorsement would appear to bolster Branstad’s image with social conservatives and tea party activists, two groups that have been highly critical of the former four-term governor. But in recent months, Palin has made a series of endorsements that have not endeared her to the tea party movement, most recently working for a U.S. House candidate in Idaho who lost to a tea party backed candidate and for Carly Fiorina in the GOP’s U.S. Senate primary in California.
“The bloom’s off the rose,” Shelby Blakely, a member of the national leadership council of Tea Party Patriots, told the conservative magazine Human Events. “She’s a company girl. She’s a Republican, and not in a good way.”
But in Iowa, Palin remains a popular figure, with an Iowa Poll from last year finding 60 percent of conservatives in Iowa view her favorably.
From her Facebook page:
Iowa, your great state’s motto is “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.” That motto will be well served by voting for Terry Branstad for governor next Tuesday!
Please join me in supporting Governor Branstad’s campaign. Visit his website here, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
Palin, who is now employed by Fox News, isn’t taking any huge risks with that endorsement. Branstad leads the race for the Republican nomination and polling data released Thursday indicate incumbent Democratic Gov. Chet Culver might be vulnerable in November.
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