🗣️ It’s Friday; time for reader replies (and rallies and event listings are BACK)!

Iowa news briefs:

• We can all finally get a COVID vaccine in Iowa: Yes, it took way longer this year because of the anti-science doofuses in charge, but the CDC finally approved a set of recommendations from federal vaccine advisers this week. Now, you don’t need a prescription, you don’t need to have proof of an underlying condition, and you probably won’t have to pay for it, depending on your insurance. (Yes, they wanted to require all of that.) Schedule yours at pharmacies like Hy-Vee, CVS, Walmart, and Walgreens, and doctors’ offices like UIHC clinics and UnityPoint, to help keep our immunocompromised neighbors and coworkers safe.
  
  
  
• Candidates announce for special election: Rachel Burns, a firefighter and emergency medical specialist, is running as a Democrat, while Wendy Larson, a small business owner, is running as a Republican. A special election was set for Dec. 9 for the House District 7 seat after Rep. Mike Sexton, a Republican, resigned, so it will not be part of your November ballot. The district covers Calhoun, Pocahontas, and Sac counties, as well as part of Webster County.

• Iowan nominated to Dept. of Education wants political test? David Barker, who previously served on the Iowa Board of Regents overseeing the state’s universities, was confirmed by the Senate as the assistant secretary for postsecondary education for the US Department of Education this week. Barker told IPR that he saw his role as “battl[ing] a liberal university establishment” and that he dug through voter records of both university administrators and faculty in Iowa’s public colleges to prove they weren’t “fair.”

Rallies and events this week:

US Senate candidate Nathan Sage:

• 11 a.m. Saturday, Storm Lake
• 1 p.m. Saturday, Rockwell City
• 5 p.m. Saturday, La Porte City
• noon Sunday, Keokuk
• 2 p.m. Sunday, Keosauqua
• 4 p.m. Sunday, Ottumwa
• 6 p.m. Sunday, Mt. Pleasant
• 5 p.m. Tuesday, Muscatine
• 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, Davenport
• 6 p.m. Wednesday, West Des Moines
• 2 p.m. Friday, Oct., 17, Corning
• 4 p.m. Friday, Oct., 17, Bedford
• 6 p.m. Friday, Oct., 17, Creston

US Senate candidate Zach Wahls:

• 6 p.m. today, Greenfield
• noon Saturday, Mount Ayr
• 2 p.m. Saturday, Creston

Governor candidate Rob Sand:

• 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Fort Dodge
• 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Boone
• 10 a.m. Friday, Franklin County
• 12:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17, Hardin County
• 3:15 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17, Marshalltown

US Rep. 2nd District candidate Clint Twedt-Ball:

• 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Cedar Rapids

US Rep. 4th District candidate Stephanie Steiner:

• 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sioux City
• 7 p.m. Wednesday, Council Bluffs
• noon Friday, Oct., 17, Ames

FED UP Fridays: 2-4 p.m. today, Des Moines

Ames Pride Fest: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday, Ames

Community Rally for Democracy: 10 a.m. Saturday, NE corner of Hickman and Alice’s Road, Waukee

Healthcare Not Authoritarianism: noon Saturday, Charles City

Weekly Rally in the Wayside Park: noon Saturday, Decorah

Events are sourced from mobilize.us and submissions; submit an event here.

Sen. Claire Celsi, D-Polk, carries a box to her desk in the Iowa Senate, Thursday, May 4, 2023, at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

🐶 This is Hardware Hank, “the best goodwill ambassador around,” reader Joan C. wrote a couple of months ago. “Too bad he wasn’t invited to Alaska, but then, neither Putin nor Trump seem like guys who like dogs.”

Fully believe in a parallel universe where H. Hank is the first dog awarded the Nobel for brokering a Russia-Ukraine peace deal.

Send me your pet photos here.

Readers are invited to add to the conversation by emailing responses@iowastartingline.com. Please include your first name and last initial. You may also want to include your city, but that’s up to you. I may edit your content for conciseness or to correct typos.

ICE arrests in Iowa:

• “Trumpers are racist and need to be voted out of power.” — John C., Iowa City

• “I am sure you are following the Ian Roberts ICE arrest in Des Moines. As disturbing as the Iowa City roundup, if not more.”
  — Matthew M.

Cancer in Iowa:

• “Thanks for doing this!” — Don L.
• “‘Why should the burden of nitrate removal be on us?’ Because obviously the municipalities aren’t doing it. For the cost of a steak dinner for you and your significant other, you can buy an under sink reverse osmosis system for your drinking and cooking water and not only are you removing the nitrates you are also removing the chlorine, fluoride, and other nasty things you’re not supposed to drink. Isn’t your overall health worth a couple hundred bucks?” — Jim H.

  (NOTE: I believe our state government absolutely has the power and money to fix this for the many Iowans who don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on personal nitrate removal. Clean water should be a right, not something only for the rich.)

Snow Buddies:

• “Is there a Snow Buddies program in Des Moines? My husband and I both have chronic illnesses and snow shoveling is tough.” — Karen S.

  
  (NOTE: This list of organizations around Central Iowa is from 2021, but may still be helpful!) 

How can we make voting easier?

• “Easy peasy. The state should send out mail-in ballots to every single registered voter in Iowa for both midterm and the general election and make the general election a national holiday. See if Elon Musk would want to chip in a couple of million dollars for a midterm lottery bonanza. (Just kidding.) After that, get rid of Citizens United so that billionaires can’t buy our elections and get rid of all dark money. Will we even have a midterm, or for that matter, another general election? (not kidding)” — Kevin S.

• “I have noticed there is not a lot of voter information available that’s not blocked behind paywalls. I’ve heard rumors that Oxford and Swisher don’t have a lot of people on the ballot to fill positions. I love what Iowa Starting Line is doing. I think you could get a lot of new followers and become Iowa’s best source of journalism by going through county accounting and talking about the local elections.

  I live in Coralville, and we have a really neat individual running for mayor. Ryan Swenka is running for the first time in his life. Katie Freeman is a community boss and is running for city council. I think shining the spotlight on some of the smaller towns will help our grassroots effort to make Iowa better.”
  — Luke F.

In support of Clara Reynen for Iowa City Council:

• “With everything belaboring Iowa, the U.S., and the world at large, I’ve felt the need to do my part in creating some kind of change. When I saw Clara Reynen at community-building events, protests, and council meetings, I was impressed by her drive, activism, and her heart for those most vulnerable. So when I learned she was running for Iowa City Council, I jumped at the chance to volunteer as her campaign treasurer. Over the last year, I’ve seen Clara protect and build our community: she understands that doing so requires advocating for every single member left in the margins. …

  She’s a librarian, a union member of COGS (graduate student union at the University of Iowa), an artist, an activist, and an organizer. Just as doctors take an oath to do no harm, Clara upholds the American Library Association’s code of ethics, promoting access, equity, intellectual freedom and privacy, public good, and sustainability. When both Democrats and Republicans see fit to pit voters against one another in culture wars, Clara’s values are a North Star to redirect us to what’s actually important. …

  Clara’s primary campaign platforms include implementing policies to regulate AI (she is the only candidate who is even talking about AI), expanding the definition of public safety to be more holistic, creating permanent supportive housing, and boosting education initiatives for our community. Clara has a vision for Iowa City, and it’s a beautiful one. Her values and goals reflect the values and goals of our city and the community we are striving to create despite this present chaos. I hope you will look her up for yourself (here’s Clara’s website), consider volunteering, and get yourself to the polls to vote on November 4th.” — Noël VanDenBosch, treasurer, Clara Reynen for Iowa City Council

Replies to letter writers:

• “Thank you, Greg C., for your thoughtful and agreeable response to last week’s Communitarian Letter of the Week. It’s nice to know there’s more of us. Sometimes it feels like less.

   

  I like your accurate observation on individualism fostering the selfish hyperconcentration of our country’s wealth.

   

  Our four one-hundredths (4%) of the world’s population possesses a full third (33%) of its wealth, distributed among our one-third of its billionaires, our four-tenths of its millionaires, and lastly, all the rest of us. So says the Googlebot.

   

  This unfair situation could never happen without selfish hyperindividualism in unleashed capitalism.

   

  More unfair, only one in ten of our billionaires are women, as are only one in three of our millionaires. In a fairer system, the split would be more like fifty-fifty.

   

  Fortunately, extrapolating this trend across the socioeconomic spectrum shows that, the lower the economic class, the greater the gender wealth equality. This means that millions more of us enjoy higher economic equality than our billionaires, lucky us.

   

  Those of us with zero wealth have no wealth gap at all. I’m sure we’d all rather the wealth were shared more fairly, though, gaps or not.

   

  The Sherman Antitrust Act prevents capitalism’s ultimate selfish-individualistic prize—monopoly—but not oligopoly. When all the Oligops share a similar mindset, what’s the difference?

   

  It’s true—capitalism’s inherent unfairnesses are amplified here, by our society’s reverence for selfish individualism. A few reasonable, minor restraints on capitalism would go a long way towards mitigating all its inherent unfairnesses, and I have absolute faith communitarians can pull together a plan to put individualism back in its box and shelve it.”
  — Dixon S.

Government shutdown:

• “This is what we are dealing with.” — Mark Imerman 

Letter of the Week:

Economic strain, diplomatic isolation and rising cyber threats linked to Trump’s policies

“President Trump’s deportation and detention plans plus the use of heavily armed military personnel for immigration control has already put a strain on local, state and national police resources. The paramilitary style police-state tactics Americans are witnessing and the marginalization of vulnerable groups will certainly lead to further civil unrest and more lawsuits.

Trump’s immigration enforcement will undoubtedly affect 1.6 million construction workers and 1.2 million agriculture laborers, who provide shelter services and the food-related products that Americans depend upon (CBS News). The availability and cost of housing projects and food are in jeopardy.

Many of Mr. Trump’s 202 executive orders have rolled back protections related to gender, race, free speech, free assembly and voting, further increasing legal and civil unrest. As of Sept. 10, 342 active legal cases challenge Trump’s 2.0 endeavors; taxpayers will likely pay the legal fees to defend his actions (Lawfare).

Spending freezes and the random firing of FEMA, EPA and HUD federal workers most assuredly risk crisis response efficacy from natural disasters to environmental catastrophes and pandemics.

President Trump’s tariff policy has been assessed on imports from 194 countries (BBC News). Four different analyses note the tariff-related price increase for America’s 67.5 million working families will be in the $2,400-$5,200 range every year until Jan. 2029 (Yale Budget Lab, Center for American Progress, Petersen Institute, and Joint Economic Committee Republicans). …

With Trump’s tariff policy against 194 countries, reciprocal tariffs by other countries against U.S. are quite possible, which risk spiraling economic costs, disrupting global supply chains and damaging diplomatic relations.

If trade retaliation occurs, many of America’s 3.4 million agriculture producers, who depend on international trade, will face the threat of bankruptcy. Furthermore, many of America’s 34 million small business owners will be at risk of closing shop.

Walter Russell Mead, a columnist for the conservative-oriented Wall Street Journal, reported since Mr. Trump has taken office, there has been a growing alignment by China, Russia, India, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and North Korea against American interests and our 51 formal allies (Sept. 2).

Trump eliminated USAID foreign aid and multilateral cooperation with approximately 100 developing countries. China and Russia are taking advantage of Trump’s faux pas to expand their political and economic influence and take America’s diplomatic place.

President Trump’s failure to work with China has created a situation where China’s cyber actors are positioned to attack America’s water, electricity and telecommunications infrastructure. China’s military posture around Taiwan and the South China Sea is a purposeful challenge to America’s stance as the leader of the free world. China knows trade and semiconductor supply chains are vital to the U.S. economy and they have the upper hand.

Mr. Trump’s failure to control Russia’s attack on Ukraine has enabled Russian-supported hackers, cyber attackers and information warfare groups to target U.S. government and corporate data. Four Republicans (i.e., Sen. Joni Ernst, Iowa; Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa; Sen. Thom Tillis, NC; and Rep. Don Bacon, Neb.) are skeptical of Trump’s international diplomacy as referenced in a Sept. 10 article titled ‘GOP increasingly says Trump has been played by Putin’ (CNN Politics).

Multiple independent sources note the leaders of China, Russia and Israel are ‘playing with Trump’ as he hasn’t displayed any diplomatic skills. It’s well documented Mr. Trump is a short-term, tactical and transactional person versus the long-term, strategic and relationship-oriented leader Americans have revered and experienced with other presidents.

Due to Trump’s policies, USA’s national security, economic, supply chain, diplomatic relations, civil rights, disaster response, law enforcement, Sino-Russian hostility, humanitarian aid, foreign intervention and peacebuilding— to name a few—are all more vulnerable to domestic and international conflicts.

If you feel America is in trouble with Trump’s actions, it’s incumbent to alert your three elected delegates in Washington, DC as to how vulnerable— domestically and internationally—we have become. Let Congress know they need to step up to Mr. Trump and his cabinet members by upholding their oath of office to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’ “

— Steve Corbin, Professor Emeritus of Marketing, University of Northern Iowa

You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website.

Iowa Starting Line

c/o COURIER Newsroom
101 Avenue of the Americas
8th and 9th Floors
New York, NY 10013

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or  from this list.