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 announcement that Bristol Palin, the unmarried daughter of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, is pregnant, injects a welcome dose of reality into the so-far unreal discussion of Republican “family values” in the 2008 presidential campaign.
The challenges facing the Palin family are a matter of public record. Bristol Palin has gotten two traffic tickets in the past 15 months, according to Alaska court records. She was stopped for speeding in June 2007 and ticketed for failure to exercise “due caution” in February 2008. So the girl is careless behind the wheel. She has engaged in premarital sex and gotten pregnant. Those aren’t mortal sins, nor are they necessarily an indictment of Palin’s parenting. They are fairly normal for American families with teenagers and almost any parent of adolescents can only sympathize. But the facts of Palin’s  life raise questions about two key points of the conservative domestic policy agenda.
For one thing, Bristol Palin’s bump is living proof that abstinence education doesn’t work, even among the families most invested in its success. One legitimate public policy question now facing Palin is: should teenagers be taught about birth control, in addition to abstinence?
Bristol Palin’s pregnancy also bring home the reality of her mother’s total opposition to abortion under any circumstances. Gov. Palin’s position is clear:  she wants criminalize the decision of any other young woman who, in Bristol’s situation, chose to terminate her pregnancy. Another question for the would-be vice president: If a teenage girl made a different choice than Bristol, should she go to jail? If so, for how long?
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