Monday, July 21, 2008

King's Comment Maligns U.S. Military

Congressman Steve King is now using a preposterous hypothetical that characterizes our servicemen as booze-hounds prone to one-night stands and black-out drunk marriages.

King, who is not even subtle with his beliefs that America should be populated by native-born whites, is a strong supporter of the so-called "widow penalty." More than 150 foreign-born widows and widowers face deportation because their spouses died less than two years after the marriages and before citizenship paperwork could be processed.



Congress is working to end the tragedy but King doesn't want to cut the widows a break, in large part because he questions the legitimacy of mixed-race families, believing them a product of white men wilding on foreign soils with exotic women. Read his own words:

"A soldier, man or woman, could get drunk in Bangkok, wake up in the morning and be married, as will happen sometimes in places like Las Vegas or Bangkok, be killed the next day, and the spouse who was a product of the evening's celebration would have then a right to claim access to come to the United States on a green card," King said during debate on the widow penalty, according to The Des Moines Register.

There are thousands of military families with mixed-race families that are beautiful unions, brimming with the family values King's crowd espouses. To suggest that our military men don't have the character to connect with foreigners in a meaningful, loving way is demeaning. King's also saying our soldiers don't have much self-restraint or self-respect. The lecherous imagery he conjures is more fitting for the old drafted Army (which King avoided while he wasn't graduating from Northwest Missouri State) than the modern professional military.

If King trusts our servicepeople to do his fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan then surely they ought to be able to avoid unwanted marriages in Bangkok.

In the end, King's comments reveal that he views non-American (white) women as toys in sexual adventures -- things to be tossed aside, not loved and cherished as humans that add to our culture and families.

How to Deal With Energy Prices

My friend Elmer Schettler, president of Carroll-based Devansoy, a leading supplier of all natural soy ingredients, has some interesting thoughts on our current energy situation.

Here is Schettler:

This spring Anne and I bought a new, year old scooter at dealer cost. The
dealer could not sell it last year because lack of interest. We did so to
make trips at 73 MPG instead of our cars 28-30 mpg. Within two week the
dealer was sold out all the scooters on hand, dealers from CA to NY were
calling offering $500.00 over dealer cost plus freight just to get one
because the demand is so high right now. If you ordered a new Scooter now
it would not be delivered till October 08 and the price went up 15-20%.

Anne has spoken to several equestrians locally who report the price of
pleasure horses has dropped from $3- 4000 last year to $200 to $1000, if
you can sell them. The price of hay, like all agricultural products, has
double and tripled in the past year. Some, who cannot sell and cannot
afford hay and grain, are taking the horse to the National Forest or Ute
Reservation - and turning them loose, abandoning them.

Others are looking for buggies. They want to keep the horse and feel they
may as well get some transportation out of them.

I'm not suggesting you invest in a buggy whip factory, however, it will be
interesting to see what happens in the next 18 months in many different
areas.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund - Simple Choice

Harkin: Petraeus Should Have Used 'Independent Judgment'



U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, says the nation needed Gen. David Petraeus to think for himself and challenge Bush administration failures in Iraq -- not soldier on as an "apologist" for what Harkin believes is a military-disabling and foreign policy-crippling debacle.

Harkin and U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., were the only two senators to recently vote against the appointment of Petraeus as commanding officer for Central Command, which oversees both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Here’s one of the biggest apologists for our war in Iraq,” Harkin said in response to questions from Iowa Independent on a conference call with media.

Harkin said Petraeus either buys into a broken plan or is functioning as a blindly loyal general.

“Someone like that whose been so promotive of what we’ve been doing in Iraq, why should we reward that?” Harkin said. “Either that’s what he believes or he’s just following the orders of Bush. You might say, ‘well a military person is supposed to follow orders.’ Well, not necessarily. We expect more of our officers, especially high-ranking officers to exercise independent judgment.”

“We’ve had generals who have retired because they oppose Bush’s policies in Iraq,” Harkin said. “I have a lot of respect for that because I think some of those who retired felt that military this was not the right thing to do and it was ruining our military.”

Harkin, a Vietnam-era Navy pilot, said his vote on Petraues was specific to the man, not an indictment of the military or career officers. In an earlier interview he had suggested that U.S. Sen. John McCain's military family tree has him rooting in "dangerous" ground for responding to foreign policy matters.

“I was an officer in the military so I don’t have anything against the officer corps for crying out loud. There are a number of great officers in the military and I’ve met a lot of them. Not only are they smart and bright but I think they have a healthy outlook on the role of the military in terms of what we’re doing in the broader context of the world community.”

Harkin's views of war and chain of command issues, the need to challenge authority in the military in certain situations, were formed early in his career as a young aide for former U.S. Rep. Neal Smith, D-Iowa, during a trip to Vietnam.


As a staff member accompanying a congressional delegation to South Vietnam, he revealed to the world the infamous "tiger cages" inside a South Vietnamese prison camp at Con Son Island. Withstanding tremendous pressure to withhold the sensitive information, Tom's photographs and detailed account of the tiger cages were published in Life Magazine, exposing a cover-up and unearthing the shocking, inhuman conditions political prisoners were forced to endure. As a result, hundreds of tortured political prisoners were released.


This story cross-posted at Iowa Independent.com.

Latham: Open Up Domestic Waters For Energy Exploration



U.S. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, says domestic energy supplies can be bolstered to provide consumers relief.

Latham is co-sponsoring legislation that will both end the moratorium on drilling off American coasts and allow for states to drill for oil and natural gas.
This legislation ultimately increases America’s petroleum and natural gas supplies while decreasing the price of gas, thereby re-ducing our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, Latham said.
“Americans are rightfully fed up because their leaders in Washington have absolutely failed them on this issue,” Latham said. “Gasoline, diesel, and other en-ergy costs are at price levels never seen before in our history, and our families are hurting over this. I am committed to forcing a wake up call on the leadership of Congress that we must act now to increase the supply of energy resources that we control here at home and lower the price at the pump.”

The legislation Latham has co-sponsored, the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act, if passed, would open up 85 percent of the outer continental shelf (OCS) to energy development.

Currently there are two moratoriums on drilling in the shelf, which prohibit en-ergy development in waters from 3 miles off our coast-line to waters beyond 200 miles off the coasts.

In 2006, the U.S. Department of the Interior estimated there to be 8.5 billion barrels of oil and 29.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the OCS. The potential for another 86 billion barrels of oil and another 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas has been classified as undiscovered resources.

In the meantime, while this bill sits in committee waiting for a vote, Cuba is has enlisted China as a drilling partner in the Florida Straits. The United States is the only country in the world that prohibits energy production on its OCS.

“Each day in this nation 85 percent of our energy comes from fossil fuels, and that needs to change,” Latham said. “I have always been, and will continue to be, a strong supporter of alternative energy research and production, but we need to turn our attention to the immediate need of increas-ing our domestic supply of affordable fuel that gets Iowans from point A to point B without busting their family budget.”

King Talks To Eskimos, They Say Drill

U.S. Rep. Steve King says the Eskimos say drill in Alaska.


Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told a radio audience in a recent interview with Glenn Beck, “I flew over and I also went down on the ground, I talked to the Eskimos there that want to drill. It’s 19.6 million acres. There's not a single tree in that entire area, not for 700 miles from where they want to drill for oil. This is a carbon copy of the ecosystem that we drilled in the north slope of Alaska in the early seventies.”

Friday, July 18, 2008

Harkin Sees Future In Renewables Pipelines

Key U.S. senators from agricultural states, Tom Harkin and Richard Lugar are working to change federal rules to help clear the way for biofuels pipelines to run from the Midwest to East Coast markets.

Harkin, D-Iowa, said regulations on publicly traded partnerships interested in developing such pipelines are heavily biased toward “depletable” fuels like traditional petroleum.

“This is an absurd situation,” Harkin said on a conference call.

Harkin said legislation he’s crafted with Lugar, R-Ind., would remove certain barriers for publicly traded partnership to start moving ethanol and other biofuels from the production-rich Midwest to consumer-heavy cities on the East Coast.

“It will jump start the development of biofuels pipelines,” Harkin said.

Harkin told reporters there already is interest from investors in a dedicated ethanol pipeline.

Magellan Midstream Partners and Buckeye Partners earlier this year announced a proposal for an ethanol pipeline system that would run from the Midwest to Northeast.
According to Magellan, the proposed pipeline would have the capacity to supply more than 10 million gallons of ethanol per day.

The pipeline would gather fuel from facilities in Iowa, lllinois, Minnesota and South Dakota to serve terminals in markets such as Philadelphia and New York.

Harkin said he has been working with New York lawmakers interested in finding ways to reduce energy costs for their constituents.

“They can get ethanol,” Harkin said. “This is the cheapest way to do it.”

Thursday, July 17, 2008

King 'Not Always' Thinking Of Running For Governor With His Cereal

WHO-TV's Dave Price recently asked U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, if he was interested in challenging Gov. Chet Culver in 2010. King sees Culver as vulnerable on a number of fronts -- namely state spending and the smoking ban (which Culver signed).


Here is Price on his blog about King:



He said "that whatever duty calls, that's what I will do. But I've made no decision yet. I go to bed at night without it on my mind. And I get up in the morning and it's not always on my mind when I wake up."

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

King Antics Block Inquiry Into Iraq WMD Claims

Republican 'Whispering and giggling' replace serious testimony on WMD, torture

U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, successfully led Republican delay tactics to block testimony of a former top Pentagon official on weapons of mass destruction claims, torture and other issues at a Tuesday hearing of the House Judiciary hearing.



The hearing's intent was to question Douglas Feith, once the No. 3 man at the Pentagon, and an official closely linked with the WMD claims the Bush Administration used to take American to war in Iraq -- as well as torture policies.

But The Washington Post reports that King led a group of Republicans in a surprise attack of delay procedures to turn the hearing into something of a circus so Feith could escape key questioning about his alleged role in these matters.


Here is The Washington Post:


By the time Feith had spoken his first words, the hearing was nearly an hour old. King and his colleagues went on to declare dozens of objections, parliamentary inquires and points of order, raising concerns about a T-shirt worn by an audience member, a sign spotted in the crowd, and the need for bathroom and lunch breaks for witnesses. Three and a half hours later, Feith had become but an asterisk at what was supposed to be his hanging.


The Post detailed King's clever efforts at deflecting attention from Feith with procedural maneuvering that outwitted subcommittee chairman U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.

Nadler turned to the witnesses. "I now want to welcome our -- "
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"Mr. Chairman!" King called out. "Mr. Chairman! Is there time for an opening statement?" King, having thus seized the floor, encouraged everybody "to roll our minds back to that terrible day of September 11th, 2001. . . . The day that all of us looked at that blazing inferno tumbling down in New York."

Nadler tried to return to business, but Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who had been whispering and giggling with King like a schoolboy, interrupted anew. "A point of parliamentary inquiry!" he said. He raised three questions, the last of which was a request to "summon" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

By the time Issa finished, King had reloaded. He gave another speech masquerading as a "clarification."

King's campaign views this as fodder for supporters and has posted a link to The Post story at the top of its Web site.

In the hearing, King argued that the questioning was politically motivated.

Here is CNN:

Invoking the September 11, 2001, attacks, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said officials crafted the policy "while that smoking hole in New York was still burning."

"It's inappropriate for us to bring people up and turn them slowly on a spit because there are people on this committee that despise this administration," he said.


The nation could have benefited from more serious inquiry of Feith.


Here is CNN:


Feith concurred with a December 2002 memorandum that recommended the approval of stress positions, dogs and nudity during interrogations, saying it was possible to apply them in a "humane fashion" in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

Monday, July 14, 2008

John McCain TV Ad: Love

John McCain's latest television advertisement running in Iowa has the inspiring quality of a well-crafted movie trailer.

It has an extraordinarily genuine patriotic pull as one sees a much younger McCain in Vietnam, then arriving home after the Hanoi Hilton. In short, the ad for the Republican presidential candidate makes one proud to be an American, to be sure, but it has a Biography Channel vibe to it. It just doesn't feel in the here and now.

Neither does McCain.

Is McCain a hero? Yes. Is the ad moving? Check. But what does that do for us today?

Focusing on war hero narrative and stock footage that just make him look older and more out of touch with people concerned about gas prices, groceries and looming household issues in swing state country.

People are paying $90 to fill up their trucks, and we even have the advent of a new term -- "staycation" -- for those who are using vacation time at home because they can't afford to travel. Meanwhile, McCain gives us former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas.

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," Gramm told The Washington Times. "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

Added Gramm, "We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline."

You hear that from McCain's top advisor Gramm, and it does stick, because it is so wildly disconnected with what many Iowans see happening with their household budgets. A few wacky reverends, from the left or the right, veering into the information superhighway, feeds the 24/7 news beast and no doubt move some voters. But the comment from Gramm, a man McCain called his economic guru is deeply revealing -- a George H.W. Bush watch-glancing moment that is dismissive of just folks.

As we hear Gramm's remarks, we start to see the McCain commercial in which the Arizona senator essentially wants to re-fight the Vietnam War, dividing the nation along 40-year-old lines.

Here is the announcer in the ad Camp McCain titles "Love":


It was a time of uncertainty, hope and change. The "Summer Of Love." Half a world away, another kind of love -- of country. John McCain: Shot down. Bayoneted. Tortured. Offered early release, he said, "No." He'd sworn an oath. Home, he turned to public service. His philosophy: before party, polls and self ... America.




Even if you were with McCain in the 1960s, is there anything about that era remotely relevant to matters today. We all know McCain is a war hero. That card is punched. He needs to fill in the rest of the character sketch, make himself seem less historical, more modern -- which may be challenging for a 71-year-old who admits that he doesn't use computers and has never sent an email. One blogger has taken to calling the candidate McFossil in a riff on his age.

I am convinced that the most rapid way for McCain to turn this around is to select Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate as it would, among other advantages, train attention on energy issues.

Palin , a 44-year-old with five children, a captivating TV-mom look and a brief and but weighty background as a reformer governor, could vault from relative national obscurity to star in a game-turning role as John McCain's running mate.

She screams here and now. We can hear it all the way from Alaska. McCain needs her speaking for the campaign, not sinked ships like Gramm who flopped in a presidential bid in 1996 and seems to have lost the return ticket from his time trip back to that period in America.

Arnold In An Obama Administration?

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he would consider a position in energy and environment issues -- in a Barack Obama administration, even though Arnold, a Republican, supports John McCain.

Here is The New York Times:


“I’d take his call now, and I’d take his call when he’s president — any time,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said. “Remember, no matter who is president, I don’t see this as a political thing. I see this as we always have to help, no matter what the administration is.”

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Smoke Ban Hits Council Chambers Over Parks, Golf Courses and Liquor Licenses

Any small town Iowa city hall reporter knows that when council members get to the routine liquor license renewals it is the rubber stamp of all rubber stamps. All "aye" and on to the next item.

Not so in Clinton -- which seems to be something of a front line in a brewing war over the Iowa smoking ban, with a local bar organization joining a lawsuit to challenge the new law and several bars reportedly violating it to keep angry customers from walking out the doors after half a beer.

At a recent city council meeting in Clinton one councilman used a liquor-license renewal request for a bar, Paul's Tap, to report the establishment for an alleged violation of the smoking ban the councilman said he witnessed. The liquor license was approved but the debate highlighted confusion over the ban and local government's role in enforcing it.

Statewide rules from the Iowa Department Of Public Health, the agency in charge of implementing the ban, are out, but they are in draft form, with a comment period still open.

Clinton isn't the only place where local government is dealing with the law.

In the wake of the July 1 implementation of the statewide indoor and public property smoking ban, Carroll City Council members Monday will focus on rules for city parks and the golf course - as well as other matters related to the law.

Council members are expecting to take no action on the measure but rather plan to review the law with Carroll City Attorney David Bruner and see where local authority may apply within the law.

"I would think they probably would want to take a look at the golf course, the park issue," Bruner said.

The Iowa law bans smoking in all indoor places, with some exceptions for casino gaming areas, the veterans home, hotel rooms and limited areas.

Smoking is prohibited in many outdoor public areas, particularly those places that are publicly owned.

While the statewide law would supercede any local action, there is some room for decisions in the council chambers, Bruner said.

His interpretation - and that of many other city officials around the state - is that the council can determine whether smoking is allowed on the golf course, even though it is clearly banned in the clubhouse.

"I think the council could allow that - on the course of play they could allow smoking," Bruner said.

"Municipalities can exempt the outdoor grounds (of golf courses) from the act, reports WQAD television in the Quad Cities. "Scott County exempted Glenn's Creek Golf Course from the ban, and Bettendorf exempted Palmer Hills Golf Course. But Davenport council members have not yet taken any action regarding Emeis, Red Hawk or Duck Creek golf courses. And, for the most part, the ban isn't going over well with golfers."

Then there is the matter of parks.

"My interpretation is obviously no smoking in park shelterhouses and surrounding grounds," Bruner said.

But the council could go further and ban smoking in all areas of city parks. Or the council could conceivably look at making some parks smoking and others non-smoking.

LeMars is dealing with the same issue before the Carroll City Council.

"The golf course and parks are what (LeMars) City Attorney Joe Flannery described as 'big questions' in the No Smoking ban scenario with the possibility existing that the city council could act to allow smoking on the holes of the golf course as well as in grassy park areas," reports the LeMars Daily Sentinel.

Bruner said the smoking ban would apply to the Carroll Family Aquatic Center now under construction as well as the Youth Sports Complex.

As it stands, the law is enforced by the Iowa Department of Public Health as a civil matter. Bruner said the city may have to deal with the issue later if lawmakers alter the smoking ban to make it a simple misdemeanor for a violation, a move that would bring in local law enforcement at a different level of intensity.

On all city property it is Bruner's interpretation that smokers can still light up in their cars, and the city hall parking lot could be ruled a smoking area.

"I think you can always smoke in your car wherever it is located," Bruner said.

COMMENTARY: The Last Generation To Have A Childhood

In the movie “Children of Men,” actor Clive Owen leads us through a futuristic land-scape in which no children are being born.

It is an imagined adults-only world. Or is it?

A few nights ago, sitting in a local watering hole after a community event we covered, I listened to stories from young parents about what it is like to be young parents. OK, some of the people were in their early 40s. Not young nationally. But young by Iowa standards.

One set of parents talked about the challenges of keeping early teen-agers away from sexually explicit Web sites. It seems you can move the home desktop computer to a place parents can monitor, but that teens, often a step ahead of mom and dad, have figured out that using a laptop and Wi fi works wonders.




The generation that laughed at the easily fooled principal in “The Breakfast Club” has now itself become that principal as far as the uber tech-savvy millenials are concerned.

We’re walking around with toilet paper on our shoes while they’re down-loading porn — or perhaps even crafting their own material for the Net.

Another parent talked about how a seemingly innocent Web search for a Barbie led one of her family members into a porthole to pornography.



Then someone told me about the safety precautions the pizza-and-kids games franchise Chuck E. Cheese takes with young people who go there for birthday parties and other events. The Chuck E. Cheese staff stamps all members of a group with the same letter or number and then cross-checks them on the way out the door. While a little creepy, this is wise and clearly intended to prevent a number of scenarios from unfolding, many of which involve predators.

Upon hearing these anecdotes, I reached the only logical conclusion, one I’d been tossing around for some time anyway: Those of us in Generation X were among the last people to have a childhood.

True or perceived, virtual or reality, the world is a far more dangerous place for kids than it was back in the late 1970s when I was running around Indianola and Carroll, doing paper routes and schlepping unchaperoned, out of the sight of pa-rental eyes, for Mr Pibbs and baseball cards.

Didn’t we beat the Russians? Shouldn’t we feel safer?

During a recent “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” book controversy at Carroll High School I observed to one of the bright seniors that their connectedness on the Inter-net, the speed with which they could mobilize friends and allies for a cause, is a stunning thing to behold.

“We live in a much smaller world today than you did Mr. Burns,” observed this CHS student, correctly and matter-of-factly.

Splayed over a recliner with a bad back earlier this week, and with the shooting pain preventing me from grabbing a television re-mote frustratingly inches outside my grasp, I did something I never thought I would do again in life: I watched the entire first “Star Wars” movie from beginning to end. It was on the first channel that came on the screen when I turned on the TV and then absent-mindedly tossed the remote out of reach.

“Star Wars” was an important part of my childhood, as it was for so many of us in Generation X. I had dozens of action figures, and to this day, can recall the names of obscure characters that ap-pear for only minutes in the movie, like the bounty hunter Greedo, lasered-down by Han Solo at the end of the famous “Star Wars” bar scene.

Only minutes into “Star Wars” the 38-year-old in me saw something that he was glad the 10-year-old didn’t have to deal with in 1977 when the movie was re-leased: One of the robots, C3PO, is clearly based on a British homosexual. With his foppish accent, fastidiousness, drama-queening and light-loafered movements, there is no doubting that 3CPO is gay.

In fact, he’s flaming.

He makes Tinky Winky, that “outed” purple Teletubby those folks were worried about a few years ago, seem like a NASCAR dad by comparison.

But when I was a kid, no one told me C3PO was gay.



We didn’t have evangelicals on the right boycotting “Star Wars” because of sub-tle messages. Similarly, I don’t recall gay-rights groups on the left seeking to have portions of the script light-sabered for some perceived offense. And if people were doing those things no one was paying attention. In the three-television channel world of the late 1970s there wasn’t enough time to televise NBA championship games live, much less worry about sideshow politics.

I’m sure many adults in 1977 recognized that C3PO was gayer than Harry Bentley on “The Jeffersons” but they were decent enough to know that kids were more interested in how the Millennium Falcon could jump to light speed than C3PO’s bathhouse banter in the oils of planet Tatooine.

Moreover, there wasn’t an Internet were some blogger could parse all of C3PO’s “Star Wars” dialogue and movements for overt and subtle gayness.

The kind of people who do that sort of thing today just rolled their eyes and went for more popcorn in the ‘70s.

And the world was a much better place.

This is cross-posted at Iowa Independent.com.

Friday, July 11, 2008

63 Percent of Iowans overweight or obese

About 1.4 million or 63 percent of Iowans are overweight or obese, reports the Iowa Department of Public Health.

In the last 10 years, overweight and obesity among Iowa adults has increased by 36 percent, and more than 18 percent of elementary school children in the state are already overweight, public health officials say.

Total annual health care costs in Iowa attributable to adult obesity are estimated at $783 million, nearly one half of which is paid by Medicare or Medicaid.

“Obesity and overweight are killing Iowans and will continue to threaten the quality of our lives if we do not pull together and fight this epidemic head on,” said Tom Newton, director of the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH). “The fact that the Partnership obtained such a competitive grant is an indication of their strong commitment to making Iowa the healthiest state in the U.S.”

Whether one is overweight or obese depends on Body Mass Index. The Centers For Disease Control has a Web site with data on weight that can assist people in determining where they fall on the scale.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Iowa Boy: Obama Can Do Well With Rural Voters


Opportunities abound, rural chronicler says. But he adds that Obama could be snared in the politics of abortion.


Former long-time Des Moines Register "Iowa Boy" columnist Chuck Offenburger, a writer who understands small towns and their people as well as any Hawkeye Stater, says Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama can "do very well with rural voters" not only in Iowa but across the nation.



"One thing he can do to build his rural base is to remind people in the farm states that John McCain is anti-subsidies and anti-earmarks, and neither of those positions squares very well with the expansion of the agricultural economy we are currently enjoying," Offenburger told Iowa Independent. "As a state legislator and later U.S. senator from Illinois, a state with a robust farm economy, Obama has been a supporter in the development of the bio-economy."

Offenburger, a Republican who operates a Web site, authors books and does freelance writing from an old farmhouse outside of Cooper south of Jefferson, said he thinks Obama can make a persuasive argument that he will be much better at helping develop strong U.S. relationships and trade agreements with the fast-developing potential markets in Asia, South Asia, Africa and South America -- all of which would benefit agriculture and manufacturing areas in rural America.

"And if Obama spends enough time campaigning in rural America, the people will see he is young, fun and focused on the future," Offenburger said. "McCain isn't. Specifically in Iowa, Obama should remind voters that he spent a whole year in this state, convincing many skeptical people that he is a legitimate candidate, articulating and defending his positions, diligently building his base, and then scoring a huge victory in the Iowa Caucuses."

In August, during the Republican straw poll Offenburger posted a piece
on his Web site in which he made the case that no members of his party in Iowa should vote for John McCain, Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson because they skipped the festivities in Ames.

"McCain essentially skipped the Iowa campaign and caucuses, and was even arrogantly dismissive about our whole process here," said Offenburger.

All of this said, Offenburger sees the abortion issue as potentially looming large in the fall in rural America.

"Obama has one huge problem, and I think it will be more of a problem for him with rural voters than those in urban areas -- the abortion issue," Offenburger said. "Obama has one of the most liberal, pro-choice voting records in Congress on this issue. A lot of people of the pro-life position, like me, find a whole lot to like about Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. But many of us will have a very hard time voting for him, knowing what his Supreme Court appointments would do to the future balance of the high court. We've made great progress there under President George W. Bush -- in fact, his Supreme Court appoiintments have been one of the very few bright spots of his presidency -- and I'd hate to give that up."

This story is crossposted at Iowa Independent.com.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Wilton Bar Owner: 'I'm a freedom fighter'

A Wilton Bar owner who has joined a lawsuit seeking an injunction on the Iowa indoor smoking ban imposed last week says he has hundreds of tavern owners around the state supporting the effort.

"It's not just business rights," said Brian Froehlich, owner of Fro's Pub & Grub in Wilton, about 12 miles north of Muscatine. "It's personal rights."

Froehlich said the debate over the ban in the mainstream media has largely been skewed to supporters -- whom he believes have engaged in a coordinated effort on newspaper blogs and other places to drown-out the voices of small business owners and the loyal smokers who have kept many a small-town bar alive for decades.

"They're using these blogs to spread their propoganda," Froehlich told Iowa Independent.

He's joined with a Clinton, Iowa bar association and others in a lawsuit challenging the ban. Former GOP U.S. Senate candidate George Eichhorn is representing the group.

Here is The Des Moines Register on the lawsuit:

On the same day a new statewide smoking ban went into effect, several bar and restaurant owners filed a petition in Polk County District Court seeking to overturn the ban.

The Iowa Bar Owners Coalition, based in Clinton County; the Clinton Organized Bar and Restaurant Association; Froehlich Properties; and longtime smoker Ron Oveson filed the petition in Des Moines on Tuesday.

The group's attorney, George Eichhorn, said he's seeking a temporary injunction on the enforcement of the ban until the case can go to trial.
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No court date has been set, but Eichhorn said he hoped it would be within the next 18 months.


""I'm a freedom fighter," Froehlich told Iowa Independent.

He has a Web site for other bar owners for organization against the ban but there is no public access -- so they can steer clear from "prying eyes."

Froehlich said his organization may become involved in political races as well.

Friday, July 04, 2008

Palin Could Help Move Gas-Price Issue To GOP



The Phoeniz Business Journal publishes a piece examining the potential Republican presidential candidate John McCain selecting Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate -- noting her social conservative credentials and support of drilling in ANWR.

Not only could she invigorate the campaign with youth and enthusiasm but the presence of an Alaskan, with experience on the energy issue, could help move the gas price matter to the Republican camp.

Here is the Phoenix Business Journal:

The drawback for Palin is that she's not experienced, said Farrell Quinlan, president of In The Arena Public Affairs.

"Like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Alaska's Sarah Palin seems destined to be on the GOP ticket someday. However, their relative inexperience for the presidency likely means they will have to wait for another four years. On the other hand, Palin or Jindal would be excellent vice presidential nominees if the McCain camp determines that they need a much younger running mate and the experience argument against Obama is not undermined by the pick," Quinlan said.

Public relations and political consultant Jason Rose agrees, but sees some possible upside. Rose did work for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney during the Republican presidential primaries.

"She would be like a highly anticipated movie premiering with quite a bang. The question would be if her box office receipts and critical reviews could hold up in the following weeks. Time will tell if she fizzles out like Geraldine Ferraro or becomes a fall blockbuster," Rose said.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Maryland Professor: Obama Should Cede The South

In a New York Times essay, Thomas Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, breaks down the numbers in Southern states and concludes that Barack Obama cannot win there -- except in Virginia.

In the rest of the South, Mr. Obama cannot overcome reality. Even if unprecedented numbers of black voters turn out to vote for him, the white vote will serve as a formidable counterbalance. Mr. Obama should not hope to capture states in the country’s most racially polarized region.

It's Cinderalla Time For Iowa Smokers

As other Iowa business owners were downloading “no smoking” signs from the Internet to comply with the first day of a statewide indoor ban, Vickie Ewoldt in Audubon was scrambling for something else.

She was searching for a flag, not an American flag, certainly not Iowa’s.

No, this longtime owner of Vic’s Main Tap wanted a Soviet flag to fly outside her bar in protest of the new law.

“I was even asking someone if they had a Soviet flag because I’d hang it out,” Ewoldt said. “It’s getting more communist all the time.”

At Kerp’s Tavern in Carroll, Kathy Cavitt, a veteran of the insurance business, was enjoying her last legal cigarettes in the bar she’s patronized for three decades.
It feels strange, she says, to know she won’t be able to smoke a Marlboro Light in there again.



“I think it’s ‘1984’ — the book,” she says, in a reference to Big Brother.

For her part, Ewoldt estimated that about 50 percent of her patrons are smokers — and the figure climbed much higher on Friday and Saturday nights.

Customers aren’t happy about the ban, she said.

“I’ve already heard a lot of kickback, people saying they might as well stay home,” Ewoldt said. “I don’t blame them at all.”

Ewoldt, who smokes Misty Ultra Lights, has worked at the bar since 1983 — and owned it since 1986.

She’s joined a coalition of bar owners spoiling for a legal fight over the ban.
Her view is that she owns the building, smoking is legal and it should be her call on whether to allow it.

“That’s just what it’s all about,” Ewoldt said. “If you don’t like smoke, then don’t go into the bar. A drink and a cigarette have gone together for years.”

She sees the law as having a dramatic change for what constitutes night life in Audubon.

“It’s going to change it a lot,” Ewoldt said. “People won’t be able to go out and do anything anymore.”

At Kerp’s the Badding family, who have operated the bar since 1977, served customers enjoying their last smokes in the bar, and prepared to box up the ashtrays. Under the law the bar may be able to set up some outdoor patio area for smokers. That’s being considered, said manager Ben Badding.

The Iowa smoking ban allows bars but not restaurants to have patios, and local businesses are reviewing the letter of the law to determine what options, if any, they have to cater to smokers.

At 5:45 p.m. Monday, 15 of the 19 people in Kerp’s were smoking. The ratio of smokers can be even higher at times, said bartender Kipp Kanne. He wasn’t on the clock at the time so Kanne smoked some Marlboro Lights with a cocktail as he talked about the ban.
“All my employees say smoking doesn’t bother them, otherwise they wouldn’t work in a bar,” Ben Badding said.

In some cities that have imposed bans, like New York or Chicago, new non-smoking clientele have come in to fill the bar stools left empty by the stubborn or resolute smokers.

Badding doesn’t see Carroll having a population base to fill that void of the loyal smoking Kerp’s drinker, should the ban chase them home.

“Carroll people who don’t go out already don’t go out for a reason,” Badding said. “I don’t think smoking in Carroll ever was an issue.”

Badding doesn’t think the urban liberal legislators who drove the ban have any sort of feel for life in rural Iowa.

“They don’t understand that in the farming communities we go out, have a couple of drinks, a couple of cigarettes, and go home,” Badding said.

One Kerp’s customer who says he’ll be spending more time at home because of the ban is Terry Olson.

“More time on the deck, without a doubt,” Olson said when asked how he would deal with the ban. “I enjoy cigarettes when I drink. The good news is my friends say we’re going to spend more time on the deck.”

Roy Osterlund, whose family will celebrate the 30th anniversary of Ossy’s Show Club in Carroll, said he hears people complain about the ban, but he’s betting they won’t stay away.

“I’ve had a lot of customers say they’re going to sit at home in the garage,” Osterlund said. “I really don’t think that will last too long.”

Osterlund said that like Badding he’s eyeing a possible patio area or the re-opening of a one-time volleyball area outside of the bar complex as a smokers’ cove.

Both Badding and Osterlund said they spent thousands of dollars in recent years on air-exchange systems to remove smoke, investments that are now obsolete.

“We did it for five years of use, and now it just sits there — starting tomorrow,” Badding said Monday night.

Jett Alex, who along with his wife, Holly, owns the Club House Bar & Grille in Carroll, is already in adaptation mode. He’s using the ban to promote more food and a family atmosphere. The business now has a regular salad bar and plans for special prime rib dinners.

With the smokers gone, Alex has a message for moms and dads: bring the kids.

“We like the drinkers but during the day, when they’re not here, bring the family in,” Alex said.

At the Carroll Country Club, manager Nate Pettitt doesn’t expect much pushback associated with the ban. There will be no smoking in the bar or on the patio, but it will permitted on the golf course.

He’s working with Carroll attorney and club board member Eric Neu on the specifics of the law and how it will be enforced. But whatever the final rules are, Pettitt expects a smooth transition.

“In our case I think it will be somewhat self-governing,” Pettitt said.

Tonight is the first men’s league under the ban and if someone forgets about the ban and lights up on the patio or in the bar, “there will be enough people who don’t smoke who make the comment,” Pettitt said.


(Photo: Kipp Kanne, a bartender at Kerp's Tavern in Carroll smokes a Marlboro Light on the last day for legal smoking in Iowa bars Monday.)

Eulogy For A Culture: The Last Legal Smoke

When Frank Sinatra, America’s most famous smoker, died (at age 82 baby), one tribute observed that thousands of men on thousands of bar stools would no longer be able to ask, “What would Frank do?”

Sinatra died in 1998, and we’ve made it a decade with the philosopher-king of love and loss, the crooner with spot-on instincts in the world of handling a punch in the gut and make it to work the next day.



Now, thanks to Mother Culver and the lawmaking picknoses in Des Moines, today we’re mourning the passing of Sinatra’s defiant prop, the cigarette, as a statewide smoking
ban faces its first night.

“What would Frank do?”

I think we know.

An under-appreciated part of our culture died last night. Small-town bars are supposed to be a bit irreverent, dimly lit places to escape the bully boss, pending divorce, or the drudgery of a working Joe life. Smoking is an essential part of this for many Iowans — 15 out of the 19 people I counted in Kerp’s Tavern just before 6 p.m. Monday.

At one time, but not so much anymore, the rural Iowa bar took our social ranks, our vanities and high-hatting of others, and crushed them like so much ice in a blender.
The farmer with his Pall Malls eased up to the bar with the banker and his Camels — and argued with the newspaperman who smokes American Spirits. They wondered about things like why Magic Johnson hasn’t died of AIDS yet or what’s the deal with the city council on the parks building or is it a fair bet on the golf tournament to take Tiger Woods against the field.

We are in increasingly cocooned lives, an Internet-connected self-isolation, in which differences, someone’s bad habit or annoying trait, are to be treated as nothing short of bubonic.

That considered, you may not have been to one of west-central Iowa’s homespun haunts for a while.

But in your mind’s eye you can picture the bartender, a 50-something weary wise woman who dishes salty comments as naturally as she ladles gravy from the crock pot in the back on your chicken fried steak. She smokes and has for 30 or 40 years.

It’s just what she does. No real explanation. Shouldn’t do it. Tried to quit, once or twice. Just didn’t take. Maybe it was the divorce.

She’s seen it all, heard tales in her tiny town taller than the scrapers of the cities she planned to visit, someday, when she can get someone to cover the bar. Yes, she’ll still be there today. But she’s not the same without those Marlboro Menthol 100s. And don’t try to tell her she’s better sans smokes because she’s not looking to turn 95. She just wants to get through the day.

And she knows that’s the mindset of the customer in what until today had been a last refuge for the convivial smoker.

What she understands that the Nanny Staters at the Iowa Department of Public Health, and the Johnny Hall Monitors in the Iowa Senate don’t is that life isn’t supposed to be fair, that clean living isn’t a sure ticket to longevity and plenty of sinners outlive their Puritan friends.

In the mid-1970s, when I was around 7 years old, my parents, not understanding the depth of my sports obsession, imposed a Monday Night Football rule of epic cruelty. I could watch the games only until halftime — about 9:30.

Did I ever miss some endings. I remember thinking then that when I was all grown up one of the best things about life surely would be the privilege of watching Monday Night Football all the way to the end, and even into overtime.

I smoked a few cigarettes after work Monday at Kerp’s — my last legal cigarette in an Iowa bar, I guess you could say.

But at some point in the night I heard my name.

It must be halftime.

And Mother Culver is calling with his condescending new law in hand.

Put out the cigarette, Doug. You are 7 years old again, he says.
(Photo: The author enjoys a final American Spirit cigarette in Kerp's Tavern in Carroll,a place next door the newspaper that he's frequented for 20 years.)