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Lawmakers host their own COVID-19 vaccine clinic at the Capitol
About 25 Iowa legislators and staff received a shot in the arm at the Iowa Capitol Tuesday during a COVID-19 clinic organized by two state representatives. It was a bipartisan effort: Rep. John Forbes, an Urbandale pharmacist, is a Democrat, and Rep. Ann Meyer, a registered nurse from Fort Dodge, is a Republican. Two Drake […]
Second gentleman visits Iowa, announces SNAP benefits increase
Douglas Emhoff, making his first visit to Iowa as second gentleman, announced Monday that federal food-assistance benefits would increase by 15% through September 2021. The increase in the SNAP program, formerly known as food stamps, will provide an estimated $3.5 billion to households with food insecurity, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The increase […]
Standing up for free speech (unless it’s about white privilege or implicit bias)
Sales of dandruff shampoo should be spiking in Iowa after all the head-scratching over the latest adventures of the Iowa Legislature. There’s been a lot to puzzle over. Just last week, the Legislature gave final approval to a bill to make it legal for landlords in three Iowa cities to kick poor people out of […]
Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff to visit Iowa
Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff will visit Iowa on Monday, the White House announced Friday. Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, is scheduled to join U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack for an event in Des Moines. Vilsack, the former Iowa governor, was confirmed last month for his second tenure as head of the […]
GOP defenders of First Amendment stood by while press freedom was on trial
Iowa Republican lawmakers, as you’ve read in this space, have been so terribly concerned about the First Amendment this year that some are willing to destroy Iowa’s state universities and potentially harm business recruitment to make a point about free speech. Senators have passed legislation out of committee to eliminate tenure at state universities, even […]
Don’t let the ‘new normal’ leave the public out of public business
The news that the State Capitol was closing to the public due to the coronavirus outbreak was just one in a stream of emails from government agencies over the past two weeks announcing they would be conducting the people’s business while temporarily ending the people’s access to public offices. Social distancing is important right now […]
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