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 American Spectator‘s blog reports that the Federal Election Commission is investigating the role of a home schooling group in former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s Ames Straw Poll finish, and may expand the investigation to include FairTax.org:
While the Huckabee campaign bought a number of tickets to the straw poll for its supporters, it didn’t arrange for transportation for all of their supporters. Instead, the campaign in Iowa was encouraging people to catch rides on the FairTax buses.
Word is the Federal Election Commission will be looking into the situation in the coming days. Already, the FEC has been investigating the role a homeschooling 501c3 organization played in political activity on behalf of the Huckabee campaign. The FairTax organization, which has been asking all Republican candidates to support its proposal of a national retail sales tax, has not endorsed a candidate, though Huckabee has said he supports the plan.
“We have no idea if the Huckabee people were piggybacking on our buses,” says a FairTax organizer in Ames. “We weren’t checking on who was riding on the buses beyond making sure they were coming to our rally at the event. If they voted for Huckabee, then more power to them.”
In June, Iowa Independent reported that the Home School Legal Defense Association would put “teams of home-schooled teenagers out in the field to do get-out-the-vote activities,” according to remarks Dr. Michael P. Farris, co-founder and chairman of the group, made on a conference call organized by the Huckabee campaign.
FairTax.org spokesman Tim Hoagland released a statement today, first reported by The Atlantic Online, responding to charges that his group knowingly bused Huckabee supporters — as opposed to Fair Tax supporters who then cast ballots for Fair Tax supporting candidate Huckabee — to the polls. “We never inquired as to whom someone supported, only asking them to come to our two events,” Hoagland said in the statement. “Having said that, it cannot really be a surprise that those citizens who feel so strongly about the FairTax naturally gravitate to those candidates who most strongly advocate enactment.”
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