Iowa Democratic Party Annual Jefferson/Jackson Dinner 10-16-10

The event started momentously with fire alarm that was triggered by steam from a dishwasher.





After we finally got back in and everyone seated they went through introducing all the State wide candidates, all the leaders of legislature,  all the congressional candidates and finally the top of ticket and the guests.  Tom Vilsack and Gov Rendell introduced.
The girls safety squad led the Pledge of Allegiance and the Des Moines Gay Men's Choir sang the Anthem.  Benediction given. 

Sue Devorsky: we are cleaning up the mess the Republican made and they stood in our way on everything we tried to do. 

Cong Bruce Braley

Congressman Bruce Braley:  In 2006 we gave them hope in 2008 we gave them change and in 2010 we are going to give them Hell. We are at our best when we are fighting for people.  We passed first bill Obama signed giving women equal pay.

Dave Loebsack

Dave Loebsack.  We are not going to go into reverse.  We are not going to let them take it back.  He is very proud of what he did for military in Iraq and Afgan.  He cannot believe Supreme court let corp. pump unlimited money into campaign.  Lets go forward not backwards.

Cong Leonard Boswell

Cong Leonard Boswell  I'm not going to kick this can down the road.  We took a lot of risks and we are not going back.  We are going to close the doughnut hole. 



Roxanne Conlin



Senate Candidate Roxanne Conlin:  WE need to retire Grassley he needs a rest.  Today deficit 1.3 trillion same as when we took over.  Our sacred promise to our veterans.  Return to our lead position in the world in Education.  The corporations haven't even tried to give me money.  WE need to stand up,,,, ad a long list.  Our tax dollars should buy American.  I represented a raped teenager and a teen that was forced to have sex by her father for three years.  Grassley would force them to have a baby if they became pregnant.  I am proudly pro-choice.  No No No to secret contributions.

Sen. Tom Harkin

Sen Tom Harkin.  I can;t wait to have Conlin with me.  I enjoy having my three cong caucus with me in Washington.  THEY (THE Republicans) ARE NOT HIDING THE PLATFORM.  you CAN READ IT JUST HOLD YOUR NOSE.  Steve King is demanding Republicans to sign blood oath to shut down govt in Washington if they cannot repeal Health Care.  They say vote out the Dem's because they have not gotten us out of Bush;s debt and recession fast enough.  When emotions are high intelligence is low.  Of course he talked about he greatest accomplishment.  The Americans with Disabilities Act.  After 29 years I see a change.  people with disabilities taking a part in life with their families. 

Lt Gov Patty Judge

Lt Gov Patty Judge.  I have not seen Kim Reynolds.  I was ready to go and Branstead jumped out in front of her and didn't let her do it.  I love Chet but no-one tells me when to talk or not talk.  I told her I would come to her to debate.  i couldn't find her anywhere.  You keep showing up when we ask.  We know you will keep showing up for the next 17 days.  1st state in Nation to pass all 10 recommendations of DOD since 9/11.  They are still fighting for us and we will fight for them. 

Gov Chet Culver.

Chet Culver:  His 14th event this week.  We one last time and we will win this time.  Iowa third best run state in American.  When Branstead was Gov he had rank of third worse run state in Country.  Branstead will cut Government by 15% but will not offer where.  The budget will not necessarily be smaller.  Another broken promise.  He promised 300,000 new jobs his last term.  He was 240,000 jobs short during Clinton's job boom.  The first bill he signed was raising taxes and then did it 53 times more despite saying he would not raise taxes/.  His 15% cut would be a 500M dollar cut in education.  Public safety would be cut 67 million.  This boils down to everything you learned in third grade math.  Addition subtraction and division.  I want more research, more health care.  He would take away health care and decrease hawkey level of eligibility.   He wants to fight Roe v Way.  He wants to put ban back in place for embryonic stem cell research. 

Gov.Ed Rendell

Gov Ed Rendell: Tom Harkin will go down in History as one of the greatest Senators ever.  He thinks Tom running for re-election.  Chet Culver has done a good job and deserves to be re-elected.  One of the worst ideas is cutting pre-K in Iowa.  Every dollar we spend on Pre-K we save 6-7 dollars.  Dumb and Dumber.  Therte is good Government spending and bad Government spending.  They tried to stop our most successful programs time after time salling them socialism and they were wrong then and are wrong now.  We have to follow ourPresident.  The republican party are increasingly being influenced by people who are absolutely nuts.

Maria Muldaur Farm Concert for Francis Thicke (D) SCTY AG Candidate.

Maria Muldaur

Maria Muldaur performed today for Francis Thicke campaign for Iowa Secretary of AG at the Des Moinesw Social Club.

I inteviewed him before the concert (see at bottom of this blog).  He performed with Maria and here are two short clips of that performance.








I inteviewed him before the concert and will be posting the inteview later today or tomorrow.  He basicly is concerned about the loss of the small farmer and the over importance of large corparate farms.  While he is not against tillage farming he is for trying to get greater part of the year with ground coverage.  Going from at most 4 months coverage to as he called it perenial coverage(though that doesn't  quite make sense) I think he means 8-12 months coverage.  Overall I found him very knowledgable about farming and agriculture.  I is very progressive but main stream from what I learned at the World Food Prize Conference this past week

I was told by his campaign manager that they have polling just finnished yesterdaythat has them within 3 points.  Which considering that the governors race has a ten point margin that is very good, if it can be trusted.  Unfortunately there were only 20 people at the event. 





This took place immediately before the Jeferson Jackson Dinner which is Iowa Democrats annual large fund raiser. This yearKeynote Speaker Gov. Ed Rendell.

ACLU Iowa 75th Annual Meeting 10-9-2010

I covered the meeting for WHO Radio and for my Blog.

ACLU Iowa

Workshop 1: Racial Justice

Dave Kuker: Very disproportionate number of people of color incarcerated. Most arrest though are misdemeanors. project implicit a site to test your prejudices. They have tests on multiple items including race.  People of color at all stages of criminal Justice system have worse outcome then kids of non-color.  A lot said and basically can be summarized as if your of color the system is against you no solutions or suggestions at all.

Keynote Speaker.  Robert Sheer, journalist and social, political commentator.

Covered Vietnam war, 6Day war, interviewed Fidel Castro (first American), interviewed all presidents from Nixon to Clinton.  The Great American Stickup is his book just out.  Truthdig.com  will be having his talk on video.

Robert Scheer

He recommended check out Paul Conrads writings. He talked about the topic of his last two books were abuse of political power and abuse of financial power. Freedoms and local control broke down with the alien and sedition laws. The founding fathers foresaw that if you tried to be an empire you would loss individual freedoms.  Washington talks about this in his Farewell address(full Text).  Instead of trying to figure out why 9-11 happened we just used it to increase the military budget.  When it comes to war and peace rational discussion of freedoms and specifically freedom of the press take a back seat.  You can not have a republic and an Empire at the same time.  An empire by definition is more totalitarian.

You go to war forget a free press.  He talked about how 9-11 report has disclaimer that they had no direct access to witnesses but had to submit questions through military.  So even presidential commission did not have free access to info.  How can we expect reporters to do better.  Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch are examples of how military lies to press.  The military try to change the stories to aid public image of war and not the truth.

Our economic meltdown.  Ronald Reagan wanted to remove regulations but then savings and loan debacle hit and he pulled back.  Clinton ended federal obligation to poor people i.e welfare reform.  Then Rubin got rid of Glass-Steagal act.  The in 2000 the commodities future act. He asked to have it explained and was told it was too tricky to understand and was referred to lobbyist working for Wall Street. Formation of Citigroup was major blow to the protections in place from the 1930's.  He went through micro dissection of mortgage breakdown.  Nothing new but very good summary.Informed public making basic decisions about public policy.  He implied that we do not have an informed public but a deceived public.
Questions:  No ones going to touch Social Security.  There has been no more successful program in USA.
Person hood of corporations: Corrupting our political system.  Should FOX news be considered a political party and not a news media.  They are news said Scheer


Inteview with Robert Scheer




Workshop :Media:Are newspapers dead? The Future of in Depth Reporting. Rekha Basu, Kevin Cooney, Joyce Russell, Brian Steffen.

Brian Steffen-communication Prof Simpson  four of his 16 students did not know the name of the Governor.  They had an average score of three out of ten.  There were a couple of college students that only got Pres Obama right.

Joyce Russell Iowa Public Radio:New ways to get news since newspapers are cutting back.  ProPublica new type of free lance investigative news agency.Iowa center for news. web site. 



Rekha Basu



Rekha Basu:Newspapers are not dead but they are morphing.  The Des Moines Register is no longer calling itself a newspaper but a media outlet.  In India her mother reads 6 newspapers a day and is typical.  She also went into a journalism class and only a few of the students read newspaper on daily basis.  We cannot be everything to everyone.  WE can bring contextual information you can not leave to chance.

Kevin Cooney

Kevin Cooney:We are not as interested in medium but the message.  They will die but that doesn't talk about the message, i.e. in depth reporting.  That is decreasing because the media cannot pay for it. 

Robert Scheer:  Predictions of death are premature however the real question is will journalism survive and it will.  Readership is way up but profits are down.We are now subject to a ruthless honesty that our predicators did not.  Journalism should be driven by passion not that you are making a big living.  I wrote a column attacking proPublica.  James Leach (former US Rep.Iowa(R)) led fight to get rid of financial regs and is the Chairman of the Board of ProPublica.  We are not the Good Old Days but the future is much more promising.

Workshop 3: LGBT: Marriage equality.  Mostly a report on the retention vote and were public opinion is on gay marraige issue.  The most interesting item is that on Tuesday Oct 19th at Simpson College West Desd Moines 1450 28th Street between 4:30 and 6 pm there will be the only discussion between both side with Van De Platts being there.  All must attend.

Performance by 'Thursday's Children' did musical based upon the Tinker case.  Here is one song from it.

The Garst Family Tribute.  over 50 years of the Garst family supporting the ACLU.

Jonathan Turley:  Shapiro Chair for public interest at George Washington Univ.Legal Expert for major news outlets.  Considered one of the top 100 attorneys in the country.
Fantastic victory in Iowa on civil liberties.  Stripping the court of these three judges is an assault upon all civil liberties.  Why we have independent judiciary.  The Independence of judges is important to protect us from people of ill humor.by Jefferson.  At issue is not the future of these judges but the future of all Iowans.
Many Judges want to be Judge Judy and engage in outrageous actions.  Discussed Supreme Court.  A deeply flawed institution. He has suggestions to fix it.   Increase court to 19 members.  does not have ability to reform itself.  No term limits and serve for life.  Madison is only framer that looks good.  He was trusted by both sides.  He would have been a member of ACLU he insisted on and wrote Bill of Rights.  Mandatory retirement at 70.  his pick of nine greatest Justices of all time:  We have a disfunctional political system. 

Jonathan Turley: Supreme Court Flawed, History and Fix Part 1
 

Jonathan Turley: Supreme Court Flawed, History and Fix Part  2




Jonathan Turley: Supreme Court Flawed, History and Fix Part  3

I will be covering the World Food Prize and the many associated conferences and lectures and will be reporting on them her.

I RESIGN: Candidacy in Iowa House District 60

I am(or was) the Democratic candidate for the Iowa House District 60, composed of most of the Polk County portion of West Des Moines. I am running against Peter Cownie the incumbent, who I ran against and lost to two years ago when it was an open seat. Two years ago he out spent me 17 to one. His father is Jim Cownie, one of the founders of the cable network in Iowa and after selling it in 1991 one of the richest men in Iowa. Peter Cownie has distinguished himself in the House with a lack luster first term. Looking at his website he can not even site a single accomplishment or single bill he introduced, other then his committee assignments. He has not a single new plan since he ran two years ago.

We have developed not a meritocracy but an affirmative action system for those of privilege. the system we have of private funding of campaigns through raising campaign contributions has led to corporatization of the United States Congress and our State Houses. We have representatives and senators at all levels costing the Government much more money because they spend based upon their contributors interest rather then the fiduciary interests of the public, their voters.

I feel we are long over due for a Clean Election Bill here in Iowa. There have been lots of court challenges of this because of potential unfairness to third part candidates. As described in Wikipedia:

Unlike traditional campaign finance laws that focus primarily on restricting spending and placing caps on campaign donations, Clean Elections laws provide a public grant to candidates who agree to limit their spending and private fundraising. Candidates participating in a Clean Elections system are required to meet certain qualification criteria, which usually includes collecting a number of signatures and small contributions (generally determined by statute and set at $5 in both Maine and Arizona) before the candidate can receive public support. In most Clean Elections programs, these qualifying contributions must be given by constituents. To receive the government campaign grant, "Clean Candidates" must forgo all other fundraising and accept no other private or personal funds. Candidates who choose not to participate are subject to limits on their fundraising, typically in the form of limits on the size of contributions they may accept and the sources of those contributions (such as limits on corporate or union contributions), and detailed reporting requirements.

I am as I describe myself a community activist who supports myself by being a Vascular Surgeon. I went to Haiti on two medical missions two weeks and two months after the devastating earthquake. I have developed a plan to allow every student attend college/university/professional/technical school and not pay a dime till they were working and then pay a fixed relatively small percentage of their salary for ten years. I developed a plan to pay for all health care in Iowa and not cost the taxpayers anything more. Several news sources credited me with keeping health care as a major issue in the last Presidential caucus cycle by attending and asking questions at 224 caucus events from all 18 candidates of both parties. I started my activism in High School and was one of ten to conceive of and run the first March of Dimes Walk (the first walk to raise money for charity) and developing the first program in the country for High school students to get academic credit for community service. Here in Iowa I have received National Volunteer of the year award from both the March of Dimes for my advocacy for the child health insurance HAWK-I and from the American Diabetes Association for conceiving of and getting passed the Farm-to-School bill and the seed that became the Healthy Child bill. The question and follow-up I asked Mr. Lightfoot in 1998 led to Vilsak being elected Governor (yes one person can make a difference). Seven months ago I completed a nine month diet losing 95 pounds and today is the seven month anniversary of completing it and I haven't gained a single pound back.