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.
Republicans in the U.S. Senate, joined by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Ct., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., last night voted against ending debate on the jobs bill. The Republicans considered most likely to cross the fence for the bill — Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine) and Scott Brown (Mass.) — voted with their party. The final vote was 56-40 in favor of ending debate.
It seems Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., believed that the Senate was ready for passage when he called the vote. He told reporters after the failed cloture vote that Lieberman would caucus with the Democrats and that “we thought we had enough votes to pass this.”
After the failed cloture vote, Reid attempted to move individual pieces of the bill via unanimous consent. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., objected to them. McConnell then attempted to move on the slim, deficit-neutral Republican version of the bill. Reid did not consent.
Reid had pared down the bill by cutting a $25-a-week add-on to unemployment insurance checks and shortening the length of the “doc fix” staving off a 21 percent cut in Medicare reimbursement rates to doctors. The pared-back bill added $55 billion to the deficit over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Now, Medicaid funding for the states might be on the chopping block.
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