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.
Christian group the Iowa Family Policy Center announced Wednesday that it has signed onto an amicus brief by Liberty Institute filed in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the National Day of Prayer.
In April, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled that the law directing the president to proclaim such a day violates the First Amendment. The National Day of Prayer was first authorized by Congress in 1952. Since 1988, the date has been set as the first Thursday in May.
“I am pleased to add my signature, and the support of IFPC, to the growing national outcry over yet another court opinion that flies in the face of our history and heritage as a nation,” said IFPC President Chuck Hurley.
Joining IFPC in the amicus brief are the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family Action, American Civil Rights Union, Let Freedom Ring and Liberty Counsel, along with 27 other family policy councils located in states nationwide.
The brief argues that not only is the National Day of Prayer constitutional, but that the judge’s ruling establishes active hostility to religion and must be reversed.
The judge seemed to address that criticism in her April ruling.
“A determination that the government may not endorse a religious message is not a determination that the message itself is harmful, unimportant, or undeserving of dissemination,” Crabb wrote. “Rather it is part of the effort to carry out the Founders’ plan of preserving religious liberty to the fullest extent possible in a pluralistic society.”
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