Some Iowa Newspapers Were Sold, Probably For Very Little Money

From the Council Bluff Daily Nonpareil:

Stephens Media Iowa LLC on Monday acquired the Ames Tribune, Boone News-Republican, Dallas County News, Nevada Journal, Ames About People & Advertiser, Tri-County Times and Algona Upper Des Moines from Midlands Newspapers Inc, a subsidiary of the Omaha World-Herald Company. A purchase price was not disclosed.

Stephens Media Iowa is a subsidiary of Stephens Media LLC, a nationwide newspaper publisher whose holdings include the Las Vegas Review-Journal and more than 50 other publications from North Carolina to Hawaii.

It couldn't have been much money. Who reads a newspaper in Ames, other than old farts like Michael Gartner?  These publications, other than the mothership Ames Tribune, are little more than local retreads of the same leftovers.

Interestingly, the Tax Update Blog warns that the new owner, Stephens Media, likes to sue bloggers who dare to cut out a couple of paragraphs for Fair Use quoting.  I'm sure Nicholas Johnson would like to have a word with them.

The DeCosters Are Back In Business

The Mason City Glob Gazette is reporting that the FDA is now allowing Wright County Egg, owned by Peter DeCoster, to once again sell eggs. This was after Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms were linked to more than 1600 cases of salmonella poisoning.

I wonder how much Peter DeCoster paid off Democratic Party operatives this time to keep his business going? Remember that DeCoster donated $10,000 to currently outgoing Lt Gov Patty Judge's goobernatorial bid in 2005, a donation which Ed Fallon called "influence peddling" at the time.

It was just a few months ago that Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller finally got around to giving back $10,000 in "influence peddling" that Petey had given him in 2005.  Let's not forget that Pete's dirty old man, Jack, has donated more than $500,000 to Democrats since 1999, according to Iowa Independent.  You can buy anything if you have enough dirty money.

UI Spence Labs Terrorism Update

According to the Iowa City Press-Citizen it doesn't look like anybody is going to be charged in the 2004 break-in by ALF members who caused $450,000 in damage at Spence Labs on the University of Iowa campus.

Isn't it interesting how nothing ever happened to animal rights wacko Leana Stormont, the then-President of the so-called "Iowa Law Student Animal Legal Defense Fund", who taunted Iowa City area with letters and guest opinion pieces in the local newspapers for months after the break-in?  What about Maria Cassino?  Didn't Bush and Ashcroft go and use the Patriot Act to find out what kind of movies they were getting from That's Rentertainment?  Sounds like they didn't.

Here's part of a news story at the time, followed by some video of the criminals in action:


Here's a more recent expose on Leana Stormont and her activities since graduating from the University of Iowa Law School.

Ed Fallon And The Democratic Party's Problem

A longtime reader forwarded an email from Ed Fallon concerning his radio show this week, it starts out:

Dear Friends,

The Democratic Party has a problem. A HUGE problem. Having sold its soul to corporate backers and special interests, it has ceased to function as the voice of the people, abdicating its historic mission as the Party of hope, change, innovation and progress.

This was the primary lesson from the November 2nd general election. Yet Party insiders in Iowa don't seem to get it. At the Statehouse, despite a humiliating election set-back, the folks in charge are still running the ship. Consider the following:

Despite losing 16 seats in the Iowa House, Kevin McCarthy retains his position as the House Democrats' leader.

Despite losing six seats in the Iowa Senate, Mike Gronstal remains the Senate Majority Leader.

And even though Jerry Crawford -- the Party's frequent spokesperson and biggest fundraiser -- endorsed a Republican for Secretary of Ag over Democrat Francis Thicke, Party leadership has looked the other way.

This will be our topic on Tuesday's Fallon Forum. Agree or disagree, I hope you'll join the conversation. Most people concur that the Democratic Party is in deep trouble, though there are plenty of opinions on what can and should be done about it...

Join the conversation from 7:00-8:00 pm Monday - Thursday at 98.3 WOW-FM and online. Call (515) 312-0983 or (866) 908-TALK to share your thoughts and ideas.

I like Ed Fallon.

He's not a True Believer. He does have his Socialist tendencies, but he's not insane about it. He's the kind of guy you can talk to about things, either over a beer or some organic turnip and beet juice.  It's too bad he didn't challenge The Big Lug in 2010 because I think Fallon could have had a chance.

It's good to hear he's still doing something productive, and I'll try to tune in on Tuesday.  So should you.

I'm Down To The Last Straw With Obama, Says Angry Liberal

This may be the funniest letter to the editor the Des Moines Register has ever published:

As a liberal, I've been very supportive of President Barack Obama. I canvassed door-to-door for him in 2008. I hailed Obamacare as the third step in progressive legislation following Social Security and Medicare.

I overlooked his not closing Guantanamo Bay, not ending the war in Iraq, continuing Bush-style rendition and torture programs (the head of CIA says we need them), no public option in the health care bill, supporting banks but not homeowners, just to name a few of what I consider shortcomings.

The reason I did this is because I considered Obama preferable to any Republican. However, if he supports the tax cuts for the wealthy, he is no better then the alternatives.

I will then support a progressive primary challenger, or a third party candidate in 2012.

I'm sure many liberal and progressive Iowans feel the same.

- Daniel Prescott, Bettendorf

I drank all of the Purple Kool-Aid, so why am I so sick?

The far left is going nuts!

It's kind of like 2006 again when the fiscal conservatives were going insane over Bush and his lack of vetoes on Congressional spending.

You go ahead and switch your allegiance.  That will be just fine.

2012 is shaping up to be a Battle Royale on both fronts, with the Register bunch in an obsessive panic over whether or not that dummy quitter Sarah Palin is going to run on the Republican side, or whether it will be the usual losers like Mitt Romney, Mike Huckleberry, Tom "Steve King" Tancredo, or Ron "Ron Paul" Paul.

Me?  I think Evan Bayh has a shot at causing some real trouble in the Democrat primaries.  Hillary, too, maybe.  Obama's in the 30s now, so he's totally vulnerable.

Greasing The Taxpayers

I don't know where to begin with this article in the Des Moines Register ("Political uncertainty hampers biodiesel industry").

The article starts off complaining about how those evil capitalist pig oil companies have a lawsuit against a biodiesel mandate by the EPA, and:

Meanwhile, the biodiesel industry's $1-a-gallon subsidy expired at the end of 2009 because of an unrelated disagreement in the Senate over a tax bill, and the subsidy still hasn't been renewed.

So what's happening with Iowa's biodiesel industry now? It's mostly idle.

You've got to love this bit of statist cheerleading by "reporter" Philip Brasher:

Some Senate Republicans have criticized the ethanol subsidy, but there has never been much public criticism of the biodiesel tax credit. The biodiesel subsidy is less expensive to taxpayers than the ethanol tax credit because biodiesel production is lower.

Only a pro-government hack would write a sentence like "The biodiesel subsidy is less expensive to taxpayers than the ethanol tax credit because biodiesel production is lower."

Brasher, have you looked lately?  The country is broke.  We broke!

"Waiter, give me the biodiesel subsidy, it's cheaper than the ethanol tax credit."


"I'm sorry, sir, but your credit card is maxed out."

See how dumb that sounds?

DMR Doesn't Allow Comments On Race And Sexuality Obsessed Article

I'm curious why the Des Moines Register was afraid to allow comments on their race and sexuality-obsessed article on the new president of Grinnell College. ("Small-town Iowa embraces Grinnell's gay, black president")

Most people don't care who the president of Grinnell College is, much less whether he's black, gay, married, or has kids.  The guy's got an impressive educational history and background, and he seems more than capable at managing an expensive, boutique college in the middle of nowhere Iowa for mostly rich kids ($46,362 a year for tuition/room & board).

But why are no comments allowed on the story?  There's only a "recommend" counter.  Is the Register afraid that their race and sexuality-obsessed article will bring out those who might be part of a Crusade or an Inquisition or part of a Witch Trial, or who bullies, hates, and is narrow-minded?  That's how I read it.

Is the Register selectively not allowing comments on certain stories because they're afraid of what might be said?  I think so.  I think they're afraid that the right-wing equivalent of Ken Fuson will show up and forget where the Off button is located.

That's silly, of course.  The number of people who hate gays because they're gay or blacks because they're black is such an incredibly small number.  That doesn't stop the Register editor elite from probably thinking otherwise considering the recent elections and the Iowa Supreme Court Justice ousters.  I'll bet the Register elite think there's a white male Republican boogeyman behind every tree, waiting for some queers to beat or a rope to use.  The Register elite are such a tone-deaf, leftist partisan bunch that it wouldn't surprise me if some of them really believe that.

Crusading, Race-Baiting Cedar Rapids Gazette Reporter: Don't Tase Black Criminals

By Erin Jordan of the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

Cedar Rapids police have used Tasers on black people disproportionately in 2010, causing members of the African-American community to call for better cultural training for officers.

Of the 30 people Tasers where used on through August of this year, nine, or 30 percent, were black — far exceeding the 3.7 percent black people comprise of the Cedar Rapids population. None had weapons.

“I am not surprised the African-Americans are Tasered more often than other folks,” said Dedric Doolin, president of the Cedar Rapids branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “History would support that African-Americans tend to more often get more severe treatment and negative response from officers. Is that appropriate? No.”

You've got to be joking, right? What are the cops supposed to do? "Oh, you're black, so we can't taser you yet until we taser some more white criminals."

There's more:

A Gazette analysis of Cedar Rapids Taser deployments from Jan. 1 through Aug. 30 showed police shocking 30 people who ended up being charged with crimes.

Tasers were used on whites 14 times, or 46.7 percent of the incidents, which is disproportionately low for the 92 percent whites comprise of the city’s population. Cedar Rapids police used a Taser on one Hispanic man, one man whose race was described as “other”, and five people whose gender and race were not noted on police use-of-force reports.

Common charges were interference with official acts, assault on a police officer, disorderly conduct and drunken driving. Reports show four cases in which the offender had a weapon. Weapons listed were a handgun, knife, vehicle and all-terrain vehicle.

Nine other offenders (six white, three black) used their hands as weapons, the reports state.

Circumstances that lead to Taser deployments vary.

Let's let some pro-criminal, race-baiting reporter, driven by an agenda from the usual bunch of racists at NAACP, micromanage the cops in Cedar Rapids.  What a swell idea!  Maybe they can turn the police there into the mamby-pamby, leftist-run joke like the Des Moines Police Department has become, especially after last summer's "Beat Whitey Night" fiasco.

It's sad the media is so gullible and eats up whatever it is that the race hustlers give them.

A few years ago, KWWL-TV succumbed to some nothing rag called Black Communicator which said that Iowa was the 2nd worst state for blacks in the US.  No, Iowa is the 2nd worst state for black criminals in the US.

Iowa's historical attitude towards blacks is pretty damn good.

The race hustlers in Cedar Rapids are just upset they can't get more expensive offices and unlimited trips to places like the Bahamas off the taxpayer's dime anymore.

They also blew it by ginning up fake "discrimination" complaints against apartment complexes in Cedar Rapids a couple years ago.

Erin Jordan throws her "racist cops" tag at North Liberty:

Other police departments also have disproportionate Taser use when it comes to minorities. Of North Liberty’s nine Taser deployments since Jan. 1, 2009, four were on black people. Just 1.5 percent of the city’s 12,400 residents are black.

North Liberty Police Chief Jim Warkentin did not return a call for comment for this story.

Don't talk to the race-baiting media, Chief!  It's a trap!

As for Erin Jordan, here's her bio:

Erin Jordan taught at the Iowa Summer Journalism Workshop held by The University of Iowa in 2009 and at the Iowa Young Writer’s Studio in Iowa City in 2006, 2007 and 2009. Her Saturday sessions with the Young Writer’s Studio involve taking high school writers to the Iowa City Farmer’s Market to interview people and write news stories from their interviews. Jordan was the Iowa City Bureau reporter for the Des Moines Register where she focused on regional and educational stories from 2003 to 2009. She spent 2000 to 2003 at the Cedar Rapids Gazette as an investigative reporter and a police and courts reporter. Jordan’s first experience in reporting was for the Iowa State Daily at Iowa State University from 1994 to 1997. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication from Iowa State University.

Now let's look at some of the comments on this story in the Gazette:

wow. National Enquirer level of journalism. Pathetic.

I wonder how the percentage of blacks/whites who were tasered corresponds to the percentage of blacks/whites who were charged with a crime. It seems to me that that would be a more accurate statistic than comparing it to the population as a whole.

What a stupid story. How many people arrested in general are black? 3 out of 10 seems normal, that must mean 7 out of 10 are Anglo. sounds more unfair to them. If you do not want to be tasered, simply do what is asked of you by the police, do not be an out of control fool or drunk. Why should they have to tackle someone, then you have lawsuits over injuries from that and disabled cops.

I for one could care less what your skin color is, if you resist arrest then you get tasered. Seems like a slow news day for the Gazette.

It appears that the taser was used almost exclusively on males. Does this mean we should be looking into the sexism angle too?

What unbelievable story!! What has happened to journalism? Has it died completely? I guess if your a cop you should check the “statistics” before you try to solve a crime to make sure you are only solving crimes that keep in mind the “race” mix of the population and if not I guess you should ignore this crime until the “population race equation ” is correct !!!

This is a dumb story.  What's the goal here?  To say the cops are racist?  To ban tasers?  To spew more left-wing, pro-criminal bullshit that most people don't believe?  I'm sorry, but I don't believe for a second that Cedar Rapids is the same as Selma, Alabama in the early 1960s.

Where is "reporter" Erin Jordan in researching what kind of sentences the local judges hand down, like how Judge David Baker let a killer driver off with a slap on the wrist and didn't even take away his driving license?  Isn't that more important to look into that sort of stuff than obsessing over whether a few more black criminals were tasered by the cops compared to the overall population?

What the hell is happening with the Cedar Rapids Gazette?  It's becoming as radicalized as the Des Moines Register has become, but then it doesn't help that they're hiring the Register's cast offs.

I wonder if "reporter" Erin Jordan has ever gone around with the cops before and see what they deal with on a daily basis.  I'd be surprised if Erin Jordan knows any cops, much less understands what they go through in their job.  When you see stories like this one, you've got to wonder what the reasoning is behind it.  Either the reporter is a radical leftist nitwit pro-criminal bed-wetter (often the case), or they hate cops because they got a speeding ticket a long time ago and couldn't talk their way out of it, or both.  In any case I wish more subscribers and advertisers would give up on their local paper when this kind of crap is printed.

The Cedar Rapids Gazette Tries To Make Us Feel Guilty For Shopping Online

From the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

A rosy outlook for holiday online sales won’t do much to improve the bottom line for struggling state and local governments because of lagging tax collections.

Online sales have been increasing ever since businesses started selling stuff over the internet.  This is a trend that will continue for probably most of our lifetimes.

As for the notion that state and local governments are "struggling... because of lagging tax collections", can anybody tell me how many state and local government employees have been laid off recently?  How many departments have been closed?  Hello?  Do we have those figures, Gazette?  Last I saw, the borrowed Federal stimulus and borrowed iJobs money was keeping the leeches and their cousins afloat.

Like Main Street and mall retailers, online retailers provide goods in exchange for dollars, but when it comes to taxation, online retailers are often treated differently.

E-tailers, as they are called, generally aren’t required to collect state sales tax from orders shipped to states in which they have no physical facilities, under a 1992 Supreme Court decision. They do collect state tax in the states where they’re physically located.

Quill Corp v. North Dakota is the case.  It's an interesting one since the original North Dakota law was enacted in 1987, nearly a decade before the modern era of the internet and shopping using web browsers.

Individual consumers in Iowa are expected to track their online purchases and pay a consumer’s use tax on non-taxed transactions to the Iowa Department of Revenue.

The state revenue department, however, has no way of collecting taxes that buyers fail to report. Iowa officials don’t even know how much tax goes uncollected from online sales, revenue spokesman Roger Stirler said.

This is such a dumb law.  It ought to be repealed, along with most of the Iowa tax code in favor of a more simplified flat tax.  I'll be bitching more about the Iowa tax code in a few months when I attempt to fill out tax forms involving two states, one of them being Iowa. 

Iowa’s major effort for improving tax collections from online sales is membership in Streamlined Sales Tax, a voluntary organization of states trying to make tax compliance simpler for e-tailers and other companies that sell items throughout the nation.

Iowa collected $12.3 million in sales tax through the system in fiscal 2010 — much less than projected a few years earlier when the state announced its participation.

Iowa's been part of the Streamlined Sales Tax since 2005.  Read about what a nightmare it could be for retailers if it was ever truly enforced.

I'm curious what the State originally projected revenue to be under the Streamlined Sales Tax when it came out in 2005.  I tried to Google but came up with nothing.  If anybody has better databases to look through give it a try and send an email.  What do you want to bet their projections were somewhere between $50 million and $100 million a year by 2010?

As for the story in general, it sadly comes with a lot of pro-government bias.  It's all your fault that the government doesn't have enough money!  What is that?  Why are newspapers advocating on behalf of wasteful entities like government?  Why are they pushing, as this story does, ridiculous amounts of paperwork and accounting on the backs of business owners and individuals so the state coffers can have a few million bucks?  Who is standing up for the individual and the shopkeeper?  Who is standing up for efficiency and sensibility rather than complexity and confusion?  Not newspapers.

Iowa City Press-Citizen: Nothing To See Here, Move Along

From the Iowa City Press-Citizen's editorial board:

In one of the UI cases, an assistant professor was charged with sexual abuse and assault in 2008 of a lab assistant and convicted last month on two serious misdemeanor assault counts. A jury deadlocked on a felony sexual abuse charge, and prosecutors plan to retry the assistant professor. According to the AP, Moore would not say whether UI now plans personnel action but did note the assistant professor could appeal. In the other case, a professor and researcher is charged with a felony for allegedly filing a false police report in Chicago earlier this year and also is being investigated by campus police. Each has received more than $200,000 since UI placed them on paid leave, according to the AP.

Let's say that you're at work and you are charged with sexual abuse and assault of a co-worker. How long do you think your employer would let you keep your job?

Here's what UI spokesman Tom Moore said in a written statement: "UI faculty are imbued with substantial rights, both substantive and procedural, protected through the U.S. Constitution. When an allegation is made that a faculty member has acted wrongfully, the university may not assume that the allegations are true -- or false."

What part of the Constitution is that?  Is it the section where it says State employees are untouchable and can continue to get paid forever for something that would get an ordinary person out in the evil capitalist society immediately canned?

Imagine getting a job at the Iowa City Press-Citizen, which would be some heavy dreaming since they've laid off nearly everybody there, sold the presses, and sold the building, but let's just imagine you get hired there.  Say you have a female co-worker who you set your eyes and hands on.  Maybe you grab her breasts or put your hand down her pants while at work, and when she complains then you smack her.

What sort of person believes keeping that type of caveman around on salary is a good idea?

Now there is a remote possibility you've hired a nutcase female who is litigious, but what are the chances of that?  I'd say it's remote considering the University of Iowa's history of aiding and abetting sexual harassers, basketball playing rapists, football playing rapists, and bringing in rapist-enablers to whitewash things.

The American Bar Association President Wants To Suppress Free Speech

The Des Moines Register has a guest column on the Iowa Supreme Court Justice ousters by some lawyer from Florida named Stephen N. Zack.  He's the president of the Liberal American Bar Assocation.  He has lots of suggestions for you stupid Iowans and how lawyers ought to suppress your free speech and right to petition the government:

Some who object to that ruling might applaud the results of the retention election. But the group that holds the majority opinion one day could well be in the minority the next. That's the whole reason Lady Justice wears a blindfold.

Right. It's a bunch of blindfolded people who were selected by a panel comprised of 86% registered Democrats. One of them basically bought his seat from Tom Vilsack and the Democratic Party.

What can be done to fix the problems so clearly illustrated by this election?

First, the corrosive effect of big money in judicial elections must be addressed. It is unacceptable that groups of all political stripes, often without any clear identification of donors, poured more than $13 million into state judicial races across the country. It's time for the public to come together, calling out third party groups that try to buy a place on the courts for their opinions and creating public pressure against this kind of secret influence.

What a stinking fascist this Stephen N. Zack is. He wants to take away the Right of people to assemble and to contribute money towards a particular issue to help inform the public? Then who are we left with to talk about the judges? Certainly not the newspapers, who never ever tell us about what kind of lousy rulings and sentences judges like David Baker have handed down over the years. What next? Do you want to come after the bloggers, the "gutless fucking cowards" who are taking "anonymous potshots at people" like judges who do stupid things?

And how about the irony of Zack, a lawyer from Florida, writing to you stupid dolts in Iowa about how he's pissed that money was contributed from outside the state.  That's rich.  Doesn't Zack's free advertising for his cause and opinion in the DMR constitute something of value?

Oh, but there's more:

Second, Iowa's system of merit selection and nonpartisan retention elections is better than some states but not ideal. When a hot issue occurs in the middle of a retention cycle, the debate rhetoric can run even hotter. Terms of service that run until a judge reaches a specified age are best. States with retention systems could cool things off by extending the terms as long as possible. The American Bar Association recommends 15 years. Iowa Supreme Court terms currently are only eight years. Longer terms make it easier for judges to concentrate on the job at hand rather than a looming election.

In other words, you want lifetime appointments and little chance at removal.  But only after you've completely suppressed free speech.  Good luck getting that law change through the Iowa Legislature now, jerk.

The organizer of the campaign against the three justices said the effort was designed to "send a message." It is a message - a wake-up call to all Americans who believe that Lady Justice should not remove her blindfold and stick her finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. Working together, we will preserve the dream of America's founding fathers: that our courts must be free of all forms of intimidation in order to protect our liberty.

Saying this as somebody who supports gay marriage, just not the way it was done in Iowa, I think this interloper needs to butt the hell out.  He's an obvious tool, and it's interesting how the comments are on this piece:

Get over it.

Well, said, Murph. And, as far as outside money goes, where was our new friend Steven Zack when outside third parties were pouring money on the plaintiff's lawyers that carried the ball in the Varnum case? That legal team, Lambda Legal, is by their own admission, funded by outside third parties. Where's the hand-wringing over that? And, where were they when the case was being made to throw three justices onto the street? Lamda and their funders could have been here helping make the case for the three justices; but, no. They were elsewhere...stirring the pot for somebody else. And, leaving the Supremes to fend for themselves. Well done, guys...

we don't give a DAMN what you think...

I am an Iowan. I do NOT appriciate a slick Miami lawyer telling me how to organize my Iowa justice system. Thanks again DMR !!

Some of you need to go back and the read the DSM article "Court: Schools can be sued even if parents sign waivers". It is a bunch of crap but the court ruled the way the court ruled. However, Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justice Mark Cady dissented. They argued the Legislature should resolve the matter, not the courts, which I beleive is correct. If Chief Justice Marsha Ternus ruled with that opinion in the homosexual marriage case she would probably still be on the bench. But she may have still gotten voted out because she does not know there is an underage drinking party going on in her backyard. I voted against her for that reason.

An outside interest in the name of Stephen N. Zack, a lawyer and president of the ABA, writes a guest column admonishing the effect of outside interests regarding Iowa politics. The laws of this country and this state allows this to take place. I'm always humored when the lawyers whine about the mess they created.

An outside interest writing to complain about outside interests.

homphobia is the copout used by pro-gays. Heaven forbid that Iowans actually had OTHER reasons to get rid of the three....

Anyone complaining about the possible influences that outside political groups (anti-gays) carried in our recent election need also to complain about the outside money that started flowing into the state 20 years ago in much quieter and stealthy methods from other outside groups (pro-gay). NEITHER SIDE IS CLEAN IN THIS ARGUMENT - so why not just discuss where we are at now and where we might be going. The hindsight blame game is lame......

I respect this newspaper's right to offer opinions on issues of the day, and to find and publish columns that complement the newspaper's position. Misery loves company, or so they say... I have a fundamental different opinion about the recent judicial retention vote. I believe the judiciary, when deciding cases at an appellate level (intrepreting the law), is expected to write decisions that reflect the narrowly defined intent of the law. If we need a law for homosexual marriage, then let's get it on the books through a legitimate law-making process. To apply the wrong law in making their unanimous decision, the Iowa Supreme Court justices demonstrated significant ncompetence. To somehow suggest that Iowa voters made the wrong decision by throwing out incompetent judtices is ridiculous. Furthermore, we don't need outsiders, especially legal hacks from Florida, telling us we, the people/voters of Iowa, made the wrong decision.

When Are Members Of The Iowa Legislature Going To Be Charged With Theft?

The Des Moines Register is reporting that Minnesota filmmaker Matthias Saunders plead guilty to felony theft in exchange for ratting on others.  He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, which you can bet with Fifth District judges in charge will be suspended, but Saunders likely faces more charges down the road which will be reduced, suspended, or which will be successfully appealed down to nothing.

Here's an interesting bit from the final paragraph:

The state's liability for tax credits issued by the program has gradually dropped as the attorney general's office has reviewed each film project that applied for credits. An estimate from the attorney general's office in August placed the maximum amount of state-backed tax credits that could still be issued for film projects at around $200 million.

A look back at who was responsible for this disaster shows that the only politicians voting against it were Bruce Hunter (D) in the House (95-1 vote) along with David Hartsuch (R) and Herman Quirmbach (D) in the Senate (48-2 vote).  Good for you guys.  You did the right thing at the time.

To every other politician who voted for this disaster:  you should kicked out of office, sent to prison, have all your assets seized and sold to pay for this, and be exiled as far away from Iowa if you ever get out of prison due to fear.  Instead, we Iowans are a complacent bunch, re-electing most of you back into the same seats so you can screw other things up.  Stupid us.

Let's remember what the Tax Update Blog said about this at the time of passage in the House:

Because the credits are transferable, the filmmakers can sell them to finance their projects. This feature makes this tax credit a subsidy, rather than just a tax break.

If it weren't tax season, I would spend more time pointing out just how absurd this thing is. Why is this one industry - an itinerant one that leaves nothing behind but empty fast food wrappers - somehow worthy of being subsidized by every other business? The standard line about how much the filmmakers bring to the economy can be said about any business - more so, in fact, about the ones that stay here and provide permanent jobs, and who end up paying for this subsidy.

A puff piece for the bill in the local business paper says:

Supporters point out that the tax incentives do not take funds from the state, but rather lower the amount of taxes producers and investors pay.

Nonsense. From a business and accounting standpoint, this is delusional. It's like telling a businessman that if he doesn't collect his outstanding business receivables, he doesn't really lose anything. The state is out the money as surely as if it wrote a check, and the rest of us have to pay that much more to make up the difference.

And then what happens when the system is criminally gamed and ineptly managed?  We know now.

We should just always assume that any government program will be criminally gamed and ineptly managed.  Those should be the first rules.  Don't trust anything that comes out of the Iowa Legislature ever again.

Ken Fuson Comments

Unlike the Des Moines Register blogs, which almost nobody reads because they're boring, people actually read the State 29 blog.

Even when the blog was dormant there was still a hell of a lot of people coming in. That's what happens when you write about stuff people are interested in, like Playboy Playmate and Denison native Emily "Jordan Monroe" Ranheim, dead porn stars like Fort Madison-raised Anna Malle, or how ousted Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Baker was soft on drunk drivers who kill when he was a District Court judge.

Not only do normal people read the State 29 blog, but so does former Des Moines Register columnist and self-described gambling addict Ken Fuson.

I have no idea why Ken Fuson would be reading a blog, much less the State 29 blog.

According to Fuson back in 2004 when he was employed:

...bloggers are humorless, thin-skinned and have a grandiose sense of their own importance...

And the term blog:

...derives from a combination of "blather" and "logorrhea."

It sounds like blogs would be something that Ken Fuson wouldn't want to read. Don't you think?

A blog would be the kind of thing that Ken Fuson would stay away from, kind of like what he tried to do with gambling casinos.

Like gambling casinos, Ken Fuson can not stay away from blogs.  At least with regard to the post Speaking Of Ex-Columnists Who Are Humorless, Thin-Skinned, and Have A Grandiose Sense Of Self-Importance, Ken Fuson appears to have written the following comment:

Ken said...

You should read it again. I didn't, and don't, blame anybody for my problem. In fact, I stated something to the effect that closing the casinos in Iowa wouldn't help someone as committed to gamble as I was.

And I'll plead guilty to whatever name you want to call me, except one: I'm not a gutless fucking coward. I don't take anonymous potshots at people from the safety of an Internet blog.

Print that, hero.

Cheers, Ken Fuson

I thought it was clear that Ken Fuson was blaming Iowa's casinos for causing him to drive to Minneapolis and Kansas City and gamble, or something like that.  Hell, I bolded the phase that was the most obvious of the blame game.  Go look at the post again.  See?  ¿Comprende?

It would be one thing if Fuson had written that he had a gambling problem and he's trying to stay straight and he tells his story of struggle.  That I can respect.  I wouldn't make fun of that.

What I don't like is Fuson writing about banning himself from Iowa casinos, then sneaking off to Minneapolis and Kansas City, and then finding gambling on the internet, and blaming Iowa's casinos a couple of paragraphs later.

What do they call that in J-school?  Narrative journalism?  The narrative?  Ken Fuson, your narrative is all screwed up!

If Ken Fuson hadn't had so many illogical holes in his narrative, I would have gladly championed his complaints about gambling in Iowa.  This blog has bitched for years about how it's the goal of many Iowa politicians to have 99 casinos in 99 counties.  I'm sorry, I meant 100 casinos in 99 counties.

And don't get this blog started about the Touchplay fiasco.

I just don't like it when addicts, be they alcoholics, drug addicts, or gambling addicts, come out with some obvious bullshit story about how it's also somebody else's fault

Ken Fuson may be publicly admitting he's a gambling addict, and hopefully he has everything under control.  I don't wish him any ill will or harm.  I just don't think he's sincere about where the blame rests.

He wants to blame the casinos.  All right then.

The casinos are just following the laws of this state.

Who sets the gambling rules in this state?  The politicians.

Where is Ken Fuson with the column complaining about the politicians?  Where is his complaint about the politicians who appoint the members of the Iowa Racing And Gaming Commission?

How come Ken Fuson isn't bitching about Terry Branstad or Tom Vilsack or Chet Culver or anybody sitting under the gold dome?

Could it be that Fuson knows too many people from his DMR days?  Don't want to step on too many feet, right?  Can't complain about the Democrats in charge who have mostly set the rules as of late because we all know any Democrat criticism at the DMR is heresy.

See, that's the trouble with working for, or having worked for, the dying, left-wing biased, corporate monopoly newspaper in central Iowa.  Ken Fuson can't write that column or guest opinion piece about who is responsible for the screwed up mess that is the overabundance of gambling in Iowa and all the pain and misery and despair it causes.  He can't write that because he knows too many Important people.  He's a face.  He was a tool for too long.

But this blog can write about such things.

This blog is written by a gutless fucking coward who takes anonymous potshots at people from the safety of an Internet blog.  And proud of it.

It's not beholden to mother company Gannett or Bill Krause or some giant company from out of state running a casino who wants to advertise.

You can bet on that.

Al Gore Is Cornholio

Everybody's been talking about how Al Gore admits he supported ethanol subsidies and protective tariffs in order to gain an advantage during the Iowa caucuses in 2000 rather than actually believing they were a good idea.

Stop the presses!  You mean to say an opportunistic politician lied about something he didn't really believe in?  Who ever heard of that before?  The media really needs to Take Care Of THIS!

The Des Moines Register's Phillip Brasher took care of it by devoting a measly three paragraphs to the matter.  I bet it pained the editors at the DMR to even mention it.  You'd think this would be bigger news since the DMR reported a couple years ago that the ethanol industry was the cause of 15% of Iowa's contribution to the hoax called global warming.

Jonathan Adler at The Volokh Conspiracy suggests that perhaps this is the end of ethanol subsidies and protective tariffs.  You've got to be kidding me!  After the EPA recently decided to double down on 15% ethanol for cars 2007 or newer, you're not going to see anything stop unless the EPA is de-funded, gutted, and beheaded.

One problem is you have a whore like former Congressman Jim Nussle (R) becoming a lobbyist for the ethanol industry.  He's such a disgrace.  A complete sellout to the fiscal conservative cause.

Thanks for re-electing industry tool Bill Northey as the Secretary of Welfare, I mean Agriculture, in Iowa.  Northey can't wait to waste more of your tax money installing E15 pumps at gas stations around Iowa.

Do you think Chuck "Fauxscal Conservative" Grassley is going to stop this madness?  No way.  A few years ago Grassley was complaining that "big oil" was the reason why there weren't more E85 pumps in Iowa, a fuel that has been a dismal failure.

How about Tom Harkin?  Nope, to Harkin ethanol is the other white meat.  We'll have to see what he says about it.  Harkin, whose wife is a ConocoPhillips executive, has always been in favor of ending the tariffs that provide protection to the shaky Iowa ethanol industry, but only as a way to import cheap Brazilian ethanol.

If ethanol subsidies do get yanked, and protective tariffs removed, Iowa will have to swallow a bitter pill.  Look how the bio-diesel industry failed in a big way in a short time. 

Worst case scenario, the laws concerning Everclear will be eased.  Get drunk to save jobs!

The Criminal Welfare-Industrial Complex In Ames

From the Ames Tribune:

The Ames City Council may be getting out of the business of Section 8 administration.

A recommendation from city staff encourages the council to return local administration duties for the subsidized housing program to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to be assigned to another agency.

“It is important to note that the city’s relinquishment of the Section 8 housing program does not mean that the assistance would no longer be made available in Ames,” the staff report said. “Rather, HUD would decide which housing authority would assume administration of the program in our city.”

Staff will present its “very difficult recommendation” to the council during its meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 23, in Council Chambers at City Hall, 515 Clark Ave.

Staff will ask the council for direction as it prepares the budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1, 2011, for which staff estimates a $150,000 shortfall in federal funding to the city for its administrative costs.

It's not a very difficult recommendation because of this:

“This option does come with a major drawback in that the city will lose control over the eligibility requirements for program participants and other discretionary policies,” according to the report.

The option will result in the council losing the ability to establish more stringent program eligibility guidelines, such as background checks or preference to Ames residents, the elderly and families.

That's what the liberals in Ames want, right?

They don't want background checks or preference to Ames residents or the elderly. They want to bring in more criminals from Chicago, or maybe even import everybody who has been bounced out of the system in Iowa City.

Liberals would gladly give up local control in favor of bringing more dirtbags, drug dealers, and thugs.  More money for the criminal welfare-industrial complex!  Their hearts bleed for these criminals, their offspring, and the problems they cause.  It provides more money for schools, defense attorneys, parole officers, court administrative personnel, local aid groups, and so on.  Do you think I'm joking here?  It's a self-serving interest they have.  They'd gladly sacrifice a couple of administrative jobs for the Liberal Greater Good.

Cedar Rapids Taxpayers Just Bought A Lousy Hotel

From the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

City officials are slated to hold a news conference on Monday to announce the city’s purchase of the downtown’s Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel from its creditor, Mayor Ron Corbett said Saturday.

The announcement has been expected for weeks.

Corbett first announced in June that the city intended to buy the long-struggling hotel from CWCapital LLC, which took possession of the 275-room, 31-year-old hotel in December after foreclosing on the former owner.

The hotel is attached to the city’s U.S. Cellular Center arena, which will be attached to the city’s coming new convention center next door.

It doesn’t make sense, Corbett has said and repeated on Saturday, to build a $75.64-million Convention Complex, which includes an upgrade of the existing arena, and not update and renovate the hotel...

...The city has appraised the value of the hotel at $2.2 million, made an initial offer of purchase that was less than that and said CWCapital was seeking more than $4 million for the property.

Corbett has said the city will use the proceeds of a $3.5-million insurance settlement from a fire at the city-owned Sinclair site to buy the hotel. He has said renovation costs could approach $17 million, an amount which revenue from the hotel may help to cover, he has said.

This is going to be a huge boondoggle.

The US Cellular Center, located next to the hotel, lost $600,000 in 2005.  Now Cedar Rapids wants to tack on a convention center?  Those almost never make money.

What makes anybody think that the City of Cedar Rapids can turn around a rotten old hotel that has been crumbling for years and was recently foreclosed on?  $17 million to rehab a hotel?  Doesn't this always cost more than expected?  Isn't revenue always less than expected?  Aren't projections always filled with blue sky and BS?

This is a problem with so many towns.  When downtowns started dying in the 1960s and 1970s, Federal money poured in to "revitalize" them under what was then known as "urban renewal".  Largely, this has been a huge waste of money.  The Flood of 2008 didn't help Cedar Rapids either, but now it's clear the politicians there are using the flood and other events such as the Sinclair fire to buy stuff they normally could not.

Let's see how this works out in the future.  Here's the starting point for you all to remember.

The Des Moines Register Is Preparing The Insanity Defense For Michael Richard Swanson

Let's be honest here, the Des Moines Register loves criminals.  Their hearts bleed for criminals.  They're disgusted by the idea of the death penalty, and yet they think mass murderers like 17 year old Michael Richard Swanson can be rehabilitated.  This won't be admitted by anybody there, but a life sentence doesn't really mean a "life sentence" in their book.  If Michael Richard Swanson was 37 years old and committed these murders 20 years ago, but then expressed a slight bit of remorse and babbled some BS about finding God, the Register Editorial Board would be lobbying for his parole because he was "just a kid" when it happened.  You know I'm right.

With that in mind, how about Sunday's story on Swanson's past by Staci Hupp?  What is the purpose of this story?  To tell you he was a troubled youth?  To tell you he was a middle class kid?  To tell you he was a potential nutjob?  Oh, we're getting warmer now.

No, I believe this story was to gain support amongst Iowans that, darn tootin', the kid was insane!

Yes, indeed.  The Des Moines Register is helping lay the groundwork to create public acceptance of the inevitable insanity defense!

Look at these examples:

A friend once watched in horror as Swanson dismembered a squirrel with pliers and a razor blade while the caged animal was alive.

Second chances came and went with court-ordered counseling, mental health treatment and, most recently, a stint at a facility for delinquent boys...

...The day before the shootings, Swanson walked home after a shift at Cub Foods and allegedly stole his mother's Jeep Cherokee and debit card, according to police.

Authorities say the teen then drove more than 200 miles north to the family cabin, broke in and stole a rifle and possibly other weapons...

...Authorities say they don't know why the teen was in Iowa, what route he took or whether his alleged crimes were drug-fueled. Swanson was known to get high on psychedelic mushrooms and marijuana...

...Perhaps most troubling for the families of Swanson and the victims are questions about what triggered such a seemingly random crime - and Swanson's unsettling reaction to the attention it drew.

Video footage of the skinny, sandy-haired teenager, smiling as he was led in handcuffs to the Kossuth County Courthouse in Algona, appeared on televisions last week across Iowa, Minnesota and the rest of the nation.

"He laughs at everything tragic," said Devin Wynn, 18, who grew up in Swanson's neighborhood. "No matter what trouble he was in, he never shows remorse."

...Police were called to the Swanson home 10 times in the past five years to investigate reports of assault, theft and weapons violations, officials say. Swanson's parents, Robert and Kathleen, have no criminal history. His two older brothers live on their own...

...A neighbor boy who said he tried to steer Swanson down the right path recently requested a no-contact order against him after Swanson allegedly blamed the boy for pawning electronics that Swanson had stolen from his own home.

The same boy, a juvenile who declined to be identified by name in this article, said he watched Swanson pull off the arms, leg and head of a squirrel about two years ago.

"I was really disgusted," the boy said. "I didn't think it was a sign that he could be crazy."

...He said Swanson by then was getting high on psychedelic mushrooms, cocaine and marijuana and doing "weird, creepy things."

Swanson stood up in their sixth-grade class and pulled down his pants to expose his genitals...

...Swanson's mental health history has not been made public, and it's unclear what role it will play at his two trials in Iowa...

...Bill Parkhill, a neighbor who says he was a friend of Robert Swanson, said the couple did "everything possible" for their son, including treatment for emotional problems.

He believes the Swansons have been blamed unfairly for their son's alleged actions.

See what I mean? The kid was crazy!  The Des Moines Register said so!

This is all so predictable.

Culver's Fat Payoff To The Unions

Here's the first five paragraphs of the Sioux City Journal's rant about Governor Chet Culver's bye bye payoff to the largest state employee union:

The only thing we might find “historic” about the tentative two-year deal reached Friday between the state's largest employee union and the Culver administration is the level of contempt it demonstrates for Iowa taxpayers and the brazen, cynical political maneuvering that went on to make it happen.

Iowans should be nothing short of appalled.

The agreement reached Friday - a deal termed “historic” by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 61 President Danny Homan – covers nearly 21,000 state workers from July 1, 2011, through June 30, 2013, and likely will be finalized sometime in December after union leaders review the proposal and submit it to rank-and-file members for ratification.

It's a sweetheart deal for the union, to be sure. At first blush, it may seem “modest,” as Culver's lead negotiator Jim Hanks termed it, but in totality it is nothing short of exorbitant. In fact, state workers covered by the contract and not yet at full scale stand to see annual wage increases of 7.5 percent during the term of the contract. No, that's not a typo. They will get a 7.5 percent raise.

Do you know anyone who is getting annual raises of 7.5 percent? We don't either.

Now we'd like to call your attention to paragraph 23 of the Des Moines Register's story by Jason Clayworth:

Paulsen, the House Republican leader, said that in some cases, some state employees would receive a roughly 15 percent salary increase over the next two years, largely because of step increases. He said the extra costs will likely cause lawmakers to have to trim the budget even further when the legislative session begins in January. Layoffs are possible, he said.

Yes, Jason, hide the truth as far down in the story as you can.

You're such a good little trained doggie.

Grant Schulte Of The Des Moines Register: "Nevermind That The Iowa Judicial Nominating Commission Is Comprised Of 86% Democrats"

Grant Schulte, a "reporter" for the Democrat bootlickers running the Des Moines Register, has a story in Saturday's paper ("How will ousters affect pool of justice applicants?") that almost entirely ignores the fact that the Iowa Judicial Nominating Commission is comprised of something like 86% registered Democrats.  Here's how close Grant gets to the problem, starting on the 19th paragraph of the story:

State law requires a gender and geography balance on the commission. When Denefe's term ends in April 2011, her replacement will be a male from the same district where she lives. The board does not have to be balanced with Democrats and Republicans, because of a constitutional provision that requires membership "without reference to political affiliation."

Seven members are lawyers elected by fellow attorneys who are admitted to the state bar.

Another seven are non-lawyers, appointed by the governor and Senate-confirmed for staggered terms. Among the group is an accountant, a factory worker, a retired schoolteacher, a real estate agent, an administrative assistant and a political science professor at Loras College. A central Iowa member, Steve Brody, is a businessman and Clive City Council member.

The panel chairman, Mark Cady, is the most senior Iowa Supreme Court justice other than the chief. Cady, appointed by Branstad in 1998, will become the longest-serving current justice after Ternus' term expires on Dec. 31.

The candidate mix usually includes private attorneys, district and appellate court judges, administrative law judges and government lawyers. Occasionally, a law professor will apply.

The commission meets around a long table at the Iowa Judicial Branch building, in a ground-floor conference room that overlooks downtown Des Moines

Really, Grant Schulte, do you really think that's going to fly? Do you think we're a bunch of idiots? Just how did the Commission get stacked in favor of registered Democrats? You want to ask that question? Want to research that story? No, you and your editors won't, because you're perfectly happy with an unfair, stacked deck.

Some of the comments on this story:

You believe for even one second that Vilsack and Culver didn't consider the political affiliation of their appointments to the "commission"? Just sheer luck of the draw made 12 of the 13 members liberal activist Deemocrats?! Grands smells a rat, and so should you!

So according to the DMR, there are some "elite" lawyers that would love to have a prestigious, powerful, life-affecting position on the ISC yet don't really want to have to answer to the public about anything they might do while serving on the court? They want the power but the accountability? Sound familiar?

Anyone anticipating applying should make sure they've made adequate financial contributions to Democrats and the Democrat party. This is a common thread running through all the current justices. This whole SC is nothing but a bunch of liberal Democrat lawyers selected by Democrat lawyers. The process smells to high heaven. It's pure stinking corrupt politics.

If the "Judicial Nominating Commission" is made up of gangsters called members of the BAR association, would it not be a CONflict of Interest to require that applicants for the vacancies be BAR members too ? There is NO fair balance of justice when there is NO FAIR BALANCE on this so called Judicial Nominating Commission. And certainly it stands to reason that there would be NO BALANCE IN THE COURTS. They ARE PARTIAL, BIASED, with a twist of CONflict(s) of Interest(s) and would ONLY want to increase THEIR bottom line (hence the moniker: Bottom Feeders) The system is not a legitimate system when It BARS Equal Access to the Courts by its Citizens who are routinely and agressively told to "Get a Lawyer" you don't have the right to speak or to be heard or to self-defense! These courts are a posterboard for a comedy of errors with these buffoons in office. Got a traffic ticket lately ? What is a Criminal Surcharge ?

For a story as important as this one, you'd think the DM Register would make it accurate, thorough and balanced. As the Iowa judiciary crumbles, so goes the Fourth Estate. The article asserts what questions can and and can't be answered, but offers no point of reference for these mandates. Is this by law or administrative rule or simply the result club rules cooked up by the legal profession? These restrictions hardly seem reasonably. Furthermore, does the commission look at the candidate's body of legal work? If they're already a judge (appeals court or district court), does the commission examine their decisions? It is appalling that the public's right to know is not the driving force in selecting public servants for this branch of government. The Register could help increase transparency in government by simply asking the right questions.

When you want to ask the "right" questions, definitely send a college boy with a double-major of journalism and German to the front lines, just as long as he has a minor in Political Science.

Speaking Of Ex-Columnists Who Are Humorless, Thin-Skinned, and Have A Grandiose Sense Of Self-Importance

I guess I didn't notice that Ken Fuson is now a former Des Moines Register columnist, and has been for over two years after leaving Gannett voluntarily, at least according to Ron Maly.  Shows you how much I noticed.

I also missed Fuson's fairly recent piece in the DMR where he admits he's been a problem gambler all of his life.  That's what happens when you're a loser, I guess.  I'm not sure why Fuson wrote that piece because he certainly doesn't sound like he's got things under control.  Maybe he needed some gambling money and his former editors at Gannett took pity on him so he wrote some big long screed.

And what do I mean by not having things under control?  Read this section and tell me if you think Ken Fuson is anywhere close to moving on to Step Six:

In February 1996, I was among the first group of people to voluntarily ban themselves from Prairie Meadows. And I have never returned, not even to attend the funeral for my friend Dic Youngs, the KIOA disc jockey, when his services were held in the casino's theater.

I eventually extended the voluntary ban to all Iowa casinos. Yet I would drive, repeatedly, to Minneapolis or Kansas City to gamble in casinos where I wasn't banned. Then I discovered Internet wagering, which was devastating. Closing the casinos in Iowa would not help someone as determined to gamble as I was.

I accept full responsibility for my actions. Nobody ever forced me to place a bet. It was my choice.

But - and this seems to be the hardest concept for a non-addicted person to understand, let alone accept - it did not feel like my choice when I was in the middle of it. Addicted people do not act rationally.

What does any of this have to do with Iowa's casinos?

Well, if I need to accept responsibility, they need to as well. Unlike my experience, many problem gamblers are made, not born, and the casinos need to recognize their role in creating them.

It's against the law for a bartender in Iowa to serve a patron too much liquor, but it's apparently perfectly acceptable for a casino to let a customer gamble and lose thousands of dollars, day after day.

Believe me, they know who's spending too much. Most casinos offer "player reward cards," allowing repeat customers to earn points that can be exchanged for prizes. But it also allows casino executives to track exactly how much people are wagering, and losing.

That's about what I'd expect out of Fuson.  He's supposedly taking token responsibility for his actions while spending numerous column inches blaming everybody else for his problem.  Typical, isn't it?  You're not anywhere close to moving on to Step Six, bud.

Just shut up and go away, jerk.

This blog never liked Fuson.  After all, he was the one who said:

I'd also like to point out that many bloggers are humorless, thin-skinned and have a grandiose sense of their own importance...

...Incidentally, no apologies for those bloggers who ridicule the way some big-boned columnists look, while keeping their own GQ-quality faces and bitter spewings hidden under the black veil of anonymity. They have all the courage, but none of the creativity, of obscene phone callers.

And he also said:

Perhaps you have not heard of blogs. The name derives from a combination of "blather" and "logorrhea."

One of the unexpected benefits of the Internet, other than the ability to look really busy at work while filling out your NCAA tournament brackets, is that people can design their own personal Web sites and then report and comment on the big issues of the day as often as they want. These are called blogs.

This has proved to be a boon to people who apparently are (A) unemployed, (B) independently wealthy, or (C) no longer content to wait on hold to get their daily fix of attention from a radio talk-show host.

Let's put it another way: You know those people who like to write letters to the editor? A blog allows them to write letters all day long, on any subject they choose, without worrying about having the profanity removed or having any of their lunatic rants checked for accuracy.

Write all you want? No editors? More profane than a David Mamet character? We reporters have a word for this: E-mail. No, wait: Heaven.

Which is so funny because the Des Moines Register has numerous blogs these days. How many? You count them up!

But nobody reads those blogs because they aren't interesting.  Just like the Des Moines Register isn't interesting, and hasn't been for a long long time.  When all you do is suck up to the politicians, wear the banner of your unpopular causes on your sleeve, and personally blame everybody else for your own problems, what do you expect?  Sympathy?  Screw you.

The Criminal Welfare-Industrial Complex In Johnson County

Kristle Harris of Iowa City was recently arrested for breaking her 15 month old daughter's arm, and then was busted for exposing her children to marijuana and cocaine.

Kristle has been in trouble with the law before, being busted for drugs, having a gun and a bulletproof vest in 2009.

The interesting aspect of this story is what newspapers initially report and then add in later editions.  The story printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen on Saturday had this extra chunk of information:

Police previously had contact with Harris in August 2009, when she and another woman were arrested for drug-related activity, Harris was charged with interference with official acts and possession of marijuana while her two children, 3 years old and 3 weeks old at the time, were in the apartment at 1053 Cross Park Ave. She pleaded guilty to the possession charge the following month, according to online court records.

Harris' latest altercation with police could endanger her chances on receiving assisted housing as well, said Steve Rackis, director of the Iowa City Housing Authority. She was terminated from the Housing Choice Voucher program in September 2009 and is ineligible until October 2012, he said.

"The recent arrested can also impact future assistance because we conduct a National Criminal Background check looking back five years," Rackis said in an email. "If an applicant is denied on a drug charge, they are subject to a three-year period of ineligibility."

In the Friday story's online comments is this curious note by "Sparky Malone":

814 Benton #13 is owned by HACAP.

How did [Kristle] come to be living in this unit? What kind of background check was done on her before she received the apartment

As we can easily verify, 814 Benton #13 in Iowa City is owned by HACAP (Hawkeye Area Community Action Program Inc).

So in 2009, Kristle was living at 1053 Cross Park in Iowa City and getting a housing voucher through the City of Iowa City's Housing Choice Voucher Program, of which Steve Rackis is the Housing Administrator.

Kristle is forced out of the City of Iowa City's Housing Choice Voucher program due to the conviction on the drug charges and proceeds to walk over to HACAP where she is apparently accepted into their Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program.

The question now is:  How come Kristle Harris was living in an apartment owned by HACAP?  Isn't HACAP forced to do a background check?

The great thing about living in Iowa is that we the public can easily perform a background check of Kristle Harris, at least concerning her past criminal behavior in Iowa thanks to the Iowa Court Search trial court web site.  Let's do that right now.

• 06521  AGCR092584 - 11/19/10 - Child Endangerment
  
• 06521  FECR081799 - created 12/17/2007, disposed 12/18/2008 - Forgery count (not filed, Judge Kristin Hibbs), Theft 4th Degree (Dismissed - Judge Douglas S Russell), Unauthorized Use Of Credit Card <$10,000 (Guilty, $750 fine, 2 years probation, Judge Nancy Baumgartner), but the probation is later extended to 3 years and then it's a 5 year suspended prison sentence by Judge Robert Sosalla, which appears to be because of a violation of probation charge by Judge Nancy Baumgartner which merits a guilty charge and no additional sentence.  In other words, Kristle Harris was originally arrested for forgery and unauthorized use of a credit card for more than $1000, but got the forgery charge dropped, fined $750, violated her probation, and then got a suspended sentence.  Nice work, judges, you should all be kicked out.
  
• 06521  FECR092583 - 11/19/10 - Child Endangerment, Bodily Injury
  
• 06521  NTCV036211 - created 8/16/2006, disposed 2/12/2008 - guilty of driving while licensed denied, susp, cancelled, or revoked - Judge Bruce Goddard - $250 fine.
  
• 06521  OWCR074931 - created 1/24/2006, disposed 4/26/2006 - guilty of OWI 1st offense - Judge Stephen C Gerard II - $1000 fine.  2nd charge Contempt-Illegal Resistance to Order or Process - sentence is "null"
  
• 06521  SMSM063282 - created 9/26/205, disposed 1/10/2006 - guilty of Interference with Official Acts, Judge Marsha A Bergan, $250 fine
  
• 06521  SMSM071254 - created 12/14/2007, disposed 2/21/2008 - guilty of Theft 5th Degree, Judge Bruce D Goddard, $100 fine.
  
• 06521  SMSM077437 - created 8/14/2009, disposed 9/25/2009 - guilty of Interference with Official Acts, Judge Stephen C Gerard II, $250 fine.
  
• 06521  SRCR088037 - created 8/14/2009, disposed 9/30/2009 - guilty of Possession of a Controlled Substance, Judge Stephen C Gerard II, $315 fine, driver license revoked for 180 days, (past probation extended a year), Level II Supervised Probation, 335 day suspended jail sentence.

Those are all from Johnson County.  There were some other, smaller traffic offenses.  No need to include those.

Again, the overall question here is why was Kristle Harris apparently accepted into HACAP's Section 8 housing program after the City of Iowa City's voucher program kicked her out?  This is all our tax money being abused here so as to give shelter to a drug dealer with a gun, a bullet proof vest, a problem with the cops, and who is violent and break her toddler daughter's arm.  Why are we even wasting our time supporting an ongoing criminal like Kristle Harris?  She's just one charge after another.

The next question is, why are these judges giving suspended jail sentences?  How do you get away with a $750 fine and a suspended sentence for charging between $1000 and $10,000 on somebody else's credit card?

Tom Harkin "The Rich Don't Need The Money They've Earned, The Government Does!"

From the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil:

Unlike Iowa’s other U.S. senator, Republican Charles Grassley, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is no fan of the so-called Bush tax cuts that are set to expire on Dec. 31.

“With the deficit we’re in and with people possibly losing their unemployment benefits, there should be no extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy,” he said during his weekly telephone press conference.

Earlier this week, Grassley said expiration of those tax cuts would create the biggest tax increase in history. Harkin, however, has long said these cuts mostly benefit the wealthy and they simply don’t need them – views he reiterated Thursday.

“The richest 1 percent of the population now takes home 24 percent of the country’s total income. In 1976, when I first came to Congress, it was 9 percent of the total income. Now, it’s up to 24 percent. To extend these tax cuts is truly obscene.”

Congress needs to focus more on the poor economy and getting people back to work, Harkin said. Contrary to lower publicized figures, the actual unemployment rate is 17 percent, he said, taking into account people who have given up seeking jobs or are working part-time for lack of full-time employment.

Look at that! The Republicans take over the House and all of a sudden the unemployment rate in Tom Harkin's mind jumps to 17%.

Harkin thinks you obscene rich people shouldn't have the government take 33% to 35% of what you earn. Why, the government should be taking at least 40%! And if Tom Harkin had his way, he'd take even more.  He's got thing to pay for, like:

• $7 million so a small rural telco can borrow the equivalent of $5833 per customer to upgrade from DSL to fiber.
• $10 million for electric buses for Cedar Rapids that were barely used and scrapped for $30,000 less than a decade later.
• $3.5 million to go to the Iowa Association of School Boards to be wasted.
• $171,000 so a town of 400 people can buy a brand new fire track on the Federal taxpayer's dime.
• $5000 for a handheld computer for the Fort Dodge Fire Department under the guise of Homeland Security.
• Millions wasted in the CIETC scandal.
• And so many zillions that we can't possibly look up.

Tom Harkin loves earmarks, unabashedly, as he said.

There are no controls on Tom Harkin's wild government spending.

You "reporters" ever asked Tom Harkin what his limits are as far as tax rates and Congressional spending?

Tim Rowher, "reporter" with the Daily Nonpareil, did you just transcribe Harkin's yammering on that phone call or were you allowed to ask any questions?  Your story reads like you're nothing but a stenographer.  Just another goddamned lapdog rewriting the crap that Tom Harkin The Liar pumps out.  Is that what you went to J-school for?

When are you douchebags in the media going to take on these politicians and get in their face about all their reckless spending?  Not just Harkin, but Grassley too!

You won't do that because then you'll lose access.  Aw, gee, Tom Harkin will take away your kneepads and have one of his staffers call your editor.  How sorry you'll be if that happens.

I'm tired of the class warfare bullshit. 

How much more money does the Treasury get if the "rich" have their income taxed at 40% rather than 35%?  Do any of you "reporters" know that answer?  I bet you sorry sacks have no clue where to look that up.  Do you think that will balance the budget?  Oh wait, the current Congress didn't even bother writing up a budget for this fiscal year.  Have you reported that lately?

Take away more money from rich people so they can't hire anybody.  What a smart idea - if you're a moron!  Who is going to hire all of these 17% unemployed?  The government?

Get a goddamn clue, "reporters", or quit your job because you suck.

How Many Armed And Dangerous Black Guys In Wheelchairs Could There Be In Des Moines?

From the Des Moines Register:

A warrant has been issued for a material witness sought in connection to a homicide this week on Des Moines’ north side.

Police want to speak with Renard Eugene Andrews, also known as “Nana,” about the death of LaCarlton Dewan Henderson, 36. Henderson was found motionless at 7:22 a.m. Thursday behind the wheel of a parked, black Chevrolet sport utility vehicle idling in a parking lot between Payne and Arnold roads, just east of 30th Street. Police discovered Henderson dead with a gunshot wound to the head.

Andrews, 32, is wanted for several unrelated felony warrants and is considered armed and dangerous, according to a news release issued by Des Moines police. Andrews uses a wheelchair and has several distinctive tattoos on his forearms, police report.

Winners And Losers

John Deeth does a great job (from an obvious but not obnoxious leftward bias) of picking Winners and Losers for the recent elections in Iowa.

I was out of state and involved in other matters while most of this election season was going on, but this final section is the best part:

Losers - Johnson County Republicans. This was a target-rich year for Republicans, and my party's soft white underbelly was exposed in many places. (Pat Murphy winning with just 51 percent in Dubuque?!?) And the Iowa City bar issue was a major wild card; student precincts actually leaned a bit more Republican than the rest of The People's Republic.

Democrats left a quarter of the Iowa House uncontested, while Republicans did much better at finding candidates. But the exception is in my county. As they have for several cycles, Republicans scored a complete goose egg on candidate recruitment. Not that she wouldn't win big anyway, but Mary Mascher hasn't seen a GOP challenger since 1996. Dave Jacoby's challenger actually left the GOP to run as a Libertarian. When the Libertarians outscore you in candidate recruitment, you have a problem.

That is interesting the Republicans just write off Johnson County.

Not that they have much of a chance there, but at least give it a college try once in a while!

When you've lost the conservative dude that publishes the Coralville Courier, you're in trouble!

This blog has bitched for years about what a rotten job the RPI and other Republican groups in Iowa have done. Not being able to field candidates worth a shit to knock off the likes of Boswell, Braley, or Loebsack in a landslide year for Republicans nationwide and one in which Branstad and Grassley cruised to victory, is a downright disgrace.  So is leaving Democrats in State seats uncontested.

What Iowans Think Of Michael Richard Swanson

I wonder what Governor Chet Culver is going to say about the two murders in northern Iowa? Anything? Big Lug, you said you were in favor of the death penalty!

From the Des Moines Register:

Michael Richard Swanson, 17, was smirking and laughing as he walked from the Kossuth County Jail across the street to the courthouse for his initial appearance. Asked why he was smiling, Swanson shook his head: "Y'all are funny."

Now what do Iowans think:

The new Governor and House need to begin moving forward on enacting the death penalty. If the Senate wont fallow, well, in two years we can change that too. For 'things' like this and the monster who was just sentenced there can be only one true outcome. They need to be terminated, wiped from the Earth. 'Things' that commit such crimes as these should be counting their minutes left, not looking forward to years...

Bring back the death penalty!!

Taxpayers will then pay dead head lawyers $400K to defend this slime ball, then we will put him in prison for the next 60 years at an annual cost to taxpayers of $50K a year, when all of this could have been avoided, if one of the mental giants who captured him would have expended a 30 cent bullet. In cases like this when things are cut and dried, these jokers should be put down.

I think the dead head judges who let this kid out should be sentenced with him, it is clear to me that they are placed on the bench to protect the public from imbeciles like this, but they did not do their job. We should kick out the judges who allowed this kid to end up killing innocents who were trying to support their families. I think we should hand their relatives a hand gun, and let them have a come to jesus meeting with this joker.

If this isn't enough cause to reinstate the death penalty, I don't know what is! I'd be happy to flip the switch & wouldn't even charge the state for it!

$1,000,000 cash bond? Why on earth would they even offer bond for this piece of garbage?

we need the death penalty in iowa. give the judge the option so that we can remove these creeps from our lives. i don't want my tax dollars to support these monsters.

The Swanson family now has a huge debt to repay to society...their loser son murdered two innocent women and destroyed their family...they better put that vacation cabin of theirs up for sale and give the proceeds to the children of these women...That smile and smirk - disgusting and vile...pure evil at its finest.

Cost... Your worried about the COST of sending this 'thing' to the gas chamber. And spare us the lecture about the Constitution, the death penalty IS legal and practiced in a number of states. This IS about justice. The death penalty is not designed to deter anything, it is about ending the existence of 'things' that have forfeited their right to exist by the deeds they have perpetrated. You are wrong on all counts.

1) Put this guy's REAR END into an electric chair.
2) Turn the current to the electric chair to ON.
3) FRY HIS FANNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Iowa needs to reinstate the death penalty - even it is not a deterrent, it relieves the rest of us of the financial obligation of scum like this.

This individual should receive the fair trial that everyone is entitled to, and if found guilty, should face (in my opinion) the death penalty.

How long before the usual small number of pacifist criminal-lovers start filling the opinion page of the Register with their usual bleeding-asshole claptrap?