Monday Iowa Roundup

"Wind power advocates" are worried that Mitt Romney is going to take away their taxpayer-financed free lunch in Iowa.  Meanwhile, Obama won't allow the building an oil pipeline from Canada to the US, has environmentalist nazis wanting to ban fracking, shuts down coal power plants and says he wants to bankrupt anybody who wants to build a new one, gives rich people subsidies for electric cars, and how much is our budget deficit?

The for-profit newspaper out of Des Moines thinks that Governor Terry Branstad is on Romney's short list for Veep.  Must be a slow news day or they smoked too many drugs to dream that one up.  That is never going to happen.

Looks like the Iowa Department of Economic Development gave a $175,000 "forgivable loan" to that con artist Russell Wasendorf and his Peregrine Financial Group.  That's about par for the course for economic illiterates running the IDED.  Along with other tax breaks, the benefit the IDED gave to Peregrine was nearly a million dollars, or over a million dollars depending on where you read it.

Speaking of swindlers, I had missed that Gary Lewellyn had died.  He ruined his father's bank in Humboldt 30 years ago by embezzling over $16 million in what was a huge scandal at the time.  Even after he got out of prison, Lewellyn continued his sham ways with food supplements in other states.  Good riddance.

Bonnie Pitz, the President of the League Of Women Voters of Iowa, wrote a letter to the Quad City Times about how voter ID is a terrible thing and that "voter fraud" doesn't exist.  Ms Pitz, you're a liar.  I've seen the videos where people have attempted to obtain a ballot for dead people and even Attorney General Eric Holder by just announcing a name at polling locations.  Sure, they're made by conservatives, but so what?  Those videos clearly show that voter fraud is easily possible.  You need a photo ID to go on an airplane, apply for welfare, open a bank account, cash a check, buy a firearm, buy alcohol or cigarettes, and so on.  We should require one for voting.

Remember several years ago when Governor Tom Vilsack gave felons back the right to vote even if they hadn't paid their restitution?  As it turns out, felons and other offenders only pay about 12% of their restitution back.  I say that felons shouldn't get back their right to vote until they've paid their full debt to society.

Over at the Regressive Nuthouse Blog, the hard left is over-obsessing on their latest hangup, ALEC.  It's always something with these clowns.  The Koch Brothers.  WalMart.  High fructose corn syrup.  Now it's ALEC.