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.
In a fiery speech spanning subjects from the causes of the Iraq war to the nation’s current economic trajectory, from torture to the 2000 election, former Vice President Al Gore gave as passionate a speech as I’ve ever seen him give Saturday.
He praised Iowa’s unique role in the American political process, and he thanked about a dozen Iowa politicos whom he met tonight or during his years as a candidate. “This is not my first rodeo,” Gore said. “This is not my first Iowa J-J dinner.”
Gore said he had been to all of Iowa’s 99 counties. “It is inspiring to see and feel the commitment and devotion that you have to American democracy. And again I know you hear this, but it shouldn’t go unsaid, and you played a special role this year, once again.”
“I remember in 1999, when this Jefferson-Jackson day dinner in Iowa played a critical and key role for me in my effort to win the Democratic nomination,” he remarked.
He also said he remembers coming back two years later, shortly after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, when Iowans and Americans were united. “I felt it in the J-J dinner here in Iowa in 2001.”
It wasn’t until the end of his speech that Gore got to the subject of climate change. He identified it as a cause of erratic weather, including the unusual tornadoes and massive flooding that hit Iowa this summer.
(And for those who were keeping score as I was, Gore was tonight’s only speaker to explicitly thank organized labor, as best as I could remember.)
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