In September, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) led the Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa poll for the Democratic primary. Today she has fallen to a distant second place, in a statistical tie with former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
In the <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2019/09/22/iowa-poll-election-2020-iowa-caucus-elizabeth-warren-joe-biden-bernie-sanders-democrat-candidates/2370015001/">previous poll</a>, Warren led the Democratic primary field with 22% of respondents selecting her as their first choice. In the most <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2019/11/17/pete-buttigieg-leads-new-iowa-poll-warren-sanders-biden-follow/4198100002/">recent poll</a>, released over the weekend, shows Warren’s support has dropped – now just 16% say she is their first choice for the Democratic nomination. This puts her in a statistical tie for second place with Biden and Sanders, who each received 15% support in the poll. South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg has pulled away from his competition to claim first place in the latest poll, with 25% of respondents saying he was their first choice for the nomination. This was a 16-point leap for the Midwestern mayor since the previous poll.
The biggest change for Warren since the release of the September poll was the unveiling of her plan to fund her Medicare-for-All proposal. The latest Iowa poll found this was at least part of the reason for Warren’s slide. This was the first time her numbers slipped in the Iowa poll, and respondents’ opinions of her ideology has changed a bit. In March, 54% said her political views were “about right.” Now 48% say the same. Also in March, just 23% said she was “too liberal,” but today 38% say the same. As the Des Moines Register noted, however, she’s still seen as more moderate than Sanders, who first championed the Medicare-for-All idea.
The Register spoke to 22-year-old Andrew Couch, who said he preferred Buttigieg’s “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan instead of the Sanders-Warren approach.
“I&#8217;m not really that big a fan of Medicare for All, just because I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s really a realistic thing that can be passed in Congress,&#8221; Couch told the outlet. &#8220;And also I think people should have an option for their health insurance, instead of being forced to join a government-ran health insurance company.&#8221;
Perhaps Couch is an outlier among Iowa Democratic youth, or perhaps not. That could be an issue for Warren going forward.
As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elizabeth-warrens-plan-to-fund-medicare-for-all-is-a-complete-fantasy">previously reported</a>, Warren’s plan to fund her Medicare-for-All proposal relies on fantasy estimations and assumptions. Unlike Sanders, Warren claims she can raise $52 trillion over the next 10 years without raising taxes on the middle class. She says she can accomplish this by cutting military funding and taxing the wealthy. She also claims immigration reform would help raise the money, even though such reform has been impossible to get through Congress in the current and previous two administrations.
Her plan also vastly overestimates the amount that would be collected from proper tax collection. A Congressional Budget Office estimate said the IRS would raise $55 billion over 10 years if the government spent an additional $20 billion on better tax enforcement, for a net revenue take of $35 billion. Warren claims she can raise $2.3 trillion with better tax enforcement.
Warren also proposed a number of revenue raisers that would be passed on to the middle class, such as payment cuts to doctors and increased taxes on employers.

Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren Support Drops In Iowa Poll After Releasing Medicare-For-All Plan

Iowa

Medicare for All

Poll

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has jumped an astounding 16 points to take the lead among Democrats in Iowa according to a new poll released Saturday.
The CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll counted likely Iowa caucus-goers, giving media and election-watchers some of the first numbers from those most likely to choose which 2020 Democratic contender will get Iowa&#8217;s votes at the Democratic National Convention &#8212; and it took everyone by surprise.
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/buttigieg-surges-clear-of-warren-biden-sanders-in-latest-iowa-poll">Fox News reports</a> that the poll shows &#8220;Buttigieg with 25 percent support, a 16 percent increase over his numbers in the September version of the poll. Behind [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren (16 percent) came former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who each garnered 15 percent support.&#8221;
&#8220;Since September,&#8221; <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2019/11/17/pete-buttigieg-leads-new-iowa-poll-warren-sanders-biden-follow/4198100002/?csp=chromepush">the Des Moines Register adds</a>, &#8220;Buttigieg has risen 16 percentage points among Iowa’s likely Democratic caucusgoers, with 25% now saying he is their first choice for president. For the first time in the Register’s Iowa Poll, he bests rivals Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are now clustered in competition for second place and about 10 percentage points behind the South Bend, Indiana, mayor.&#8221;
That&#8217;s bad news for Warren, particularly. Her support has tanked, falling six points from a similar poll in September, when she was surging to popularity and threatening Biden who, at the time, was widely considered the leader. Over the past several weeks, support for Warren has stagnated and then cratered, as she&#8217;s struggled to flesh out the details of her policy platform, and has refused to say whether her &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; plan would involve an across-the-board tax increase.
The poll also appears to show that far-left Democrats, once convinced that Warren was their best shot at a national candidate, are abandoning her to return to Bernie Sanders, who inched up four percentage points since the last poll, taken just as Warren was gaining momentum.
The best news, though, is for Buttigieg, who has been an also-ran candidate since entering the race for the Democratic presidential nomination earlier this year. The South Bend major, who once touted progressive policy ideas on the trail, has re-tailored his campaign&#8217;s messaging in recent weeks to seem more &#8220;moderate&#8221; in the face of polls that show a moderate message resonating with possible Democrat voters in &#8220;red&#8221; and &#8220;battleground&#8221; states.
Buttigieg has also focused his efforts to snag the nomination on Iowa, putting more than 100 staffers in 30 offices across the state, mostly in areas that have grown in population since the 2012 and 2016 election cycles, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/10/pete-buttigieg-moderate-iowa-caucus">according to the Guardian</a>.
“We’ve built an organization in Iowa that is capable of capturing this momentum and converting it to committed caucus-goers to knock on doors, host house meetings, and win the Iowa caucuses for Pete,” his campaign director told the left-leaning UK newspaper just this week.
It&#8217;s a winning strategy for the Indiana mayor whose resume is thin when compared to his top competitors. This is the second such poll to show Buttigieg in the lead in less than a week. The first, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/buttigieg-iowa-surge-poll">a Monmouth poll out Tuesday</a>, gave Buttigieg a three-point edge over his closest competitor, former Vice President Joe Biden.
&nbsp;

Pete Buttigieg.

Buttigieg In First? South Bend Mayor Surges Sixteen Points To Take Iowa Lead In New Poll

2020 Election

Joe Biden

Pete Buttigieg

Former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julian Castro stated on Sunday that both Iowa and New Hampshire should give up their famed status as the first states in the nation to hold a caucus and a primary due to their lack of diverse constituents.
&#8220;I actually do believe that we need to change the order of the states because I don&#8217;t believe that we&#8217;re the same country we were in 1972 — that is when Iowa first held its caucus first,&#8221; Castro said while speaking to NBC News. &#8220;And by the time we have the next presidential election in 2024, it will have been more than 50 years since 1972. Our country has changed a lot in those 50 years. The Democratic Party has changed a lot.&#8221;
&#8220;What I really appreciate about Iowans and the folks in New Hampshire is that they take this process very seriously. They vet the candidates, they show up at town halls, they give people a good hearing,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;At the same time, demographically, it&#8217;s not reflective of the United States as a whole, certainly not reflective of the Democratic Party, and I believe that other states should have their chance.&#8221;
&#8220;So, yes, of course we need to find other states,&#8221; Castro added. &#8220;That doesn&#8217;t mean that Iowa and New Hampshire still can&#8217;t play an important role, but I don&#8217;t believe that forever we should be married to Iowa and New Hampshire going first, and that&#8217;s just the truth of the way that I see it.&#8221;
Castro&#8217;s remarks come after his Democratic presidential challenger Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was asked the same question only days earlier while attending an Environmental Justice forum in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Warren notably dodged the question, rather contending that she is just &#8220;a player in the game.&#8221;
While the former Obama official has been polling below 1% on average among Democratic primary voters in both <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/ia/iowa_democratic_presidential_caucus-6731.html">Iowa</a> and <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/nh/new_hampshire_democratic_presidential_primary-6276.html">New Hampshire</a>, Warren is leading the crowded primary field in both states. As of publication, the Massachusetts lawmaker sits at more than 21% support and 19% support on average in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively.
Last week Castro&#8217;s campaign revealed that it had fired its entire staff in both New Hampshire and South Carolina as it seeks to focus on opportunities in Iowa and Nevada. The news came after the campaign gave supporters an ultimatum to raise $0.8 million in donations by the end of October or else risk the end of his White House bid.
Castro ultimately surpassed the goal and generated nearly $1 million by the deadline. The campaign said the fundraising haul will provide the presidential hopeful with the necessary resources to &#8220;sustain the campaign and make a push for the November and December Democratic debates.&#8221;
Thus far, only ten candidates in the presidential primary field have qualified for the Democratic National Committee&#8217;s (DNC) next debate — Castro has not yet met the required threshold.
&#8220;I can imagine he&#8217;s frustrated,&#8221; said New Hampshire Democratic Chair Ray Buckley. &#8220;But blaming his campaign&#8217;s challenges on the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire is a bit much.&#8221;

14 Democratic Presidential Candidates Attend Iowa Liberty And Justice Celebration

Castro Argues Iowa And New Hampshire Aren&#8217;t Diverse Enough To Be Early Primary States

Julian Castro

New Hampshire

To hear the mainstream media tell it, America is clamoring to impeach President Trump.
Not so in Iowa, one of the first states in the nation to hold caucuses in the 2020 presidential campaign.
&#8220;The most important issue for voters in Iowa in deciding for whom to vote for president is the economy at 33%, followed by healthcare at 19%, and social issues at 10%,&#8221; according to a <a href="https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.com/pr/iowa-2020-dead-heat-with-biden-and-warren-mayor-pete-continues-to-build-and-sanders-slides">new poll</a> by Emerson. &#8220;Impeachment ranked seven out of nine at 6%, ahead of education at 5% and foreign policy at 3%.&#8221;
The issue, being pushed daily by Democrats in Washington, D.C., doesn&#8217;t even fare well among party members in Iowa. &#8220;Among Democrats, the most important issue is health care at 25%, followed by the economy at 17%, and the environment at 14%. The majority of Republicans (55%) identify the economy as the most important issue, followed by immigration at 14%. Independents are split between the economy (27%) and healthcare (24%).&#8221;
&#8220;The Democrats have some work to do in Iowa convincing voters that impeachment is a top priority of Congress; 67% of Democrats in Iowa support impeaching the president, but only 10% identify it as the most important issue in deciding their vote for president,” said Spencer Kimball, director of Emerson Polling.
Even when the parties are combined, impeachment is not embraced in Iowa, where residents take their politics seriously.  The Emerson poll also found that a plurality of voters from all parties – 48% – oppose impeachment, while just 42% support it.
The poll also found that former Vice President Joe Biden is now tied with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), both with 23%, followed by Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 16%, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) dropping to fourth at 13%. All other candidates were at or below 5%. Trump would win in a head-to-head contest with two of the three top candidates.
&#8220;In hypothetical head to head matchups, Trump has a slight advantage over Warren and Biden: 51% to 49%, while Sanders carries a two point advantage over Trump with 51% to 49%,&#8221; the poll found.
Meanwhile in Washington, Democrat-led House committees are quickly moving ahead with impeachment. Three panels last week held closed-door hearings with current and former federal officials as part of the move.
Steve Bannon, a former top strategist for Trump, said House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will lead Democrats to impeach the president by early December.
“This is serious. As sure as the turning of the earth, he is going to be impeached by Pelosi in the next six weeks,” Bannon told the <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/10/19/steve-bannon-says-trump-may-be-impeached-in-six-weeks-face-challenge-from-bloomberg-clinton/">New York Post</a>. “Nancy Pelosi is very focused.”
The findings of the new poll contrast with another recent survey. The latest <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3644" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Quinnipiac University poll</a> found that that 51% of voters nationwide support the House&#8217;s impeachment inquiry into Trump, while 45% disapprove of it.
<div class="zn-body__paragraph speakable">That mirrors the findings of <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/267491/congress-approval-support-impeaching-trump.aspx">Gallup:</a></div>
<div class="zn-body__paragraph speakable">
<blockquote>Public opinion on whether Trump should be impeached remains mixed, but Americans now lean slightly more in favor of impeachment and removal from office compared with where they stood in June.
Currently, 52% say Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 46% say he should not be. This is roughly the opposite of what Gallup found in June when asked in the context of special counselor Robert Mueller&#8217;s investigation.</blockquote>
&#8220;In myriad ways, the headwinds Trump faces are quite different from the ones faced by his embattled predecessors,&#8221; Gallup concluded. &#8220;But Gallup&#8217;s trends do show that public opinion on the question of a president&#8217;s fate can indeed move, and that low support for such actions can undermine efforts to successfully remove a president.&#8221;
</div>

TRUMP

POLL: Just 6% Of Iowa Voters Say Impeachment Most Important Issue

Donald Trump

Impeachment

Sen. Bernie Sanders&#8217; (I-VT) presidential campaign, Bernie 2020, released its first television campaign advertisement on Tuesday morning.
&#8220;Defeating Trump is not enough. We need leadership that will fight for working families and the shrinking middle class, not just the one percent,&#8221; Sanders tweeted while introducing the ad. &#8220;That is exactly what I have done my whole life and what I am prepared to do as president.&#8221;
The ad, titled &#8220;Fight for Us,&#8221; portrays the Vermont senator as a fighter willing to take on President Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election.
&#8220;Bernie Sanders, fighting to raise wages for American workers, leading the fight for guaranteed health care for all, standing up for civil rights, seniors, veterans, and our children&#8217;s future,&#8221; a narrator says in the video. &#8220;Whether it was Wall Street, the drug companies, or other powerful special interests, Bernie has taken them on for us.&#8221;
<iframe title="Fights For Us" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BZ5TW07ff2o?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;Now our country is at a turning point,&#8221; the narrator continues. &#8220;A dangerous demagogue tearing our nation apart, hardworking people betrayed by Trump, a health care system that makes enormous profits for drug and insurance companies, and a planet on the brink of a climate disaster. In this moment we need a fighter.&#8221;
&#8220;Bernie Sanders, we know he will fight for us as president because he always has,&#8221; the ad concludes.
Sanders&#8217; campaign spent $1.3 million to air both a 30-second and 60-second version of the advertisement in the Hawkeye state over the next two weeks, according to <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/463871-sanders-rolls-out-seven-figure-ad-spot-in-iowa">The Hill</a>. While it was released online, it will not hit Iowa voters&#8217; televisions until Thursday, but when it does, it will be aired in every Iowa market.
The ad&#8217;s announcement comes just over one week after <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2019/09/22/iowa-poll-election-2020-iowa-caucus-elizabeth-warren-joe-biden-bernie-sanders-democrat-candidates/2370015001/">a poll conducted</a> by Des Moines Register, CNN, and Mediacom showed Sanders slipping to a distant third place in the early voting state of Iowa. The poll has Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) gaining momentum and leading the pack at 22%, followed by former Vice President Joe Biden at 20%, and Sanders lagging the two frontrunners with only 11% support.
However, Sanders revealed earlier on Tuesday that his campaign has generated massive donations during the third quarter. The Vermont senator received more that $25 million over the past three months, raising more than any other Democratic candidate in the 2020 primary thus far.
&#8220;Bernie is proud to be the only candidate running to defeat Donald Trump who is 100 percent funded by grassroots donations &#8212;  both in the primary and in the general,&#8221; Faiz Shakir, Sanders&#8217; campaign manager, said. &#8220;Media elites and professional pundits have tried repeatedly to dismiss this campaign, and yet working-class Americans keep saying loudly and clearly that they want a political revolution.&#8221;
Accordingly, the average donation size of Sanders&#8217; fundraising haul is reportedly just $18.07. The Bernie 2020 campaign noted that more than 99.9% of those donors had not hit the maximum allowable contribution and can therefore donate more in the future.
Neither Warren nor Biden has reported their fundraising totals for the third quarter and have until October 15 to officially do so.

Senator Bernie Sanders Joins The Chicago Teachers Union Strike

WATCH: Bernie Releases New Ad With Seven Figure Buy In Iowa

Bernie Sanders

Late Tuesday night, after the man who raised more than $1 million for a children’s hospital was forced to apologize for seven-year-old tweets, the news outlet that unearthed the tweets attempted to deflect blame for their role in his negative coverage.
Media outlets have been under fire lately for using years-old tweets to get people fired or punished. It’s part of “cancel culture,” where people are punished for things they said years ago that either weren’t offensive at the time but are now, or were said when the person now being canceled was a minor.
Earlier this month, Carson King was highlighted on “ESPN College GameDay” for holding up a sign at a University of Iowa football game that read, “Busch Light supply need replenished. Venmo Carson-King-25.&#8221; King was rewarded with more than $1 million from strangers around the country.
Instead of taking the money for himself, King decided to donate it to the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital. When the Des Moines Register chose to write a story about King’s selflessness, its reporter, Aaron Calvin, searched through the 24-year-old&#8217;s social media history and found two racist tweets referencing jokes from comedian Daniel Tosh’s Comedy Central program “Tosh.0.” The outlet told King what they had discovered and he thanked them for finding the tweets and deleted them, offering remorse for his old statements.
The Register published information about the tweets anyway. King, in an effort to get ahead of the story, released a statement about the old tweets where he publicly apologized for things he said on social media when he was 16 years old. King’s public apology prompted Anheuser-Busch to cut ties with the man who raised more than $1 million for children, saying his seven-year-old social media posts “do not align with our values as a brand or as a company and we will have no further associations with him.”  The company said it would still donate more than $350,000 to the children’s hospital.
A backlash ensued against the Register since they started the ball rolling against one man’s extremely selfless gesture. The outlet attempted to deflect blame in a lengthy statement Tuesday night by noting King’s attempt to get ahead of the story.
“[T]he decision about how to use this information was preempted when King held a news conference to discuss his tweets and express his remorse,” the outlet said. “The news conference was covered by local television stations, which first reported on the racist posts and King’s remorse. After those stories aired, Busch Light’s parent company announced it would honor its pledge to the children’s hospital but would sever future ties with King.”
“That happened before the Register published its profile of King, which was still in the editing process.”
Before that, the Register explained that “a discussion” among several editors took place to decide whether to publish the old tweets, especially in light of King’s remorse and the fact that the tweets were irrelevant to his selflessness.
“Should that material be included in the profile at all?” the outlet asked. “The jokes were highly inappropriate and were public posts. Shouldn’t that be acknowledged to all the people who had donated money to King’s cause or were planning to do so?”
“The counter arguments: The tweets were posted seven years ago, when King was 16. And he was remorseful. Should we chalk up the posts to a youthful mistake and omit the information?”
The outlet decided to publish the information. Simply asking King about the tweets was enough to prompt the fallout. Media outlets have been destroying people over past tweets, which King likely knew, prompting him to get ahead of the story.
Below is the Register’s full statement:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
A statement from our editor: <a href="https://t.co/ZH9AhcrYbg">pic.twitter.com/ZH9AhcrYbg</a>
— Des Moines Register (@DMRegister) <a href="https://twitter.com/DMRegister/status/1176705031468457985?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 25, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;

brittak via Getty Images

Des Moines Register Deflects Blame After Reporter Dug Up Old Tweets Of Man Who Raised Money For Children’s Hospital

Media Bias

Speaking in Iowa, former Vice President Joe Biden was confronted by a reporter who wanted to know why Iowans, with their current low unemployment rate, should shift from voting strongly for President Trump in 2016 to voting for Biden in 2020. When she asked Biden to make his case for why he should be elected, he answered, &#8220;I&#8217;m not going to.&#8221;
The exchange went like this:
<blockquote>Reporter: Well, In Iowa, the unemployment rate is 2.5%; people say they are employed in Iowa and their small businesses are growing; Iowa picked Trump by —
Biden: They were employed before he got elected.
Reporter: The president won by 10 percentage points in Iowa.
Biden: I’m not suggesting that he didn’t win by 10 percentage points; what I’m suggesting is he’s not the reason for that employment rate being down.
Reporter: But why should people want to make a change, though?
Biden: Well, that’s up to them to decide.
Reporter: Why should they?
Biden: It’s for them to decide.
Reporter: Well, make your case.
Biden: I’m not going to.</blockquote>
It would definitely be difficult for Biden to make his case to Iowans; not only is the current unemployment rate in Iowa 2.5% as opposed to 3.9% across the nation, but there are other signs the economy of the state is flourishing. <a href="https://www.radioiowa.com/2019/09/23/state-tax-incentives-approved-for-eddyville-dubuque-lime-springs-businesses/">RadioIowa</a> reported on Monday that the Iowa Economic Development Authority approved incentives for three businesses that have promised to create 150 new jobs. Cargill was awarded tax benefits for a $125 million expansion of its Eddyville plant and is expected to create 17 new jobs paying upward of $17 an hour; Hormel won tax benefits as it plans to move jobs from Nebraska to Dubuque, creating 58 new jobs paying over $23 an hour; Upper Iowa Beef won tax benefits allowing the company to create 75 additional jobs at roughly $22 an hour.
As <a href="https://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2019/09/trumps-trade-deal-with-japan-will-do-wonders-for-iowa-farmers/">caffeinatedthoughts.com</a> pointed out last week, President Trump&#8217;s recent deal with Japan also helps Iowans:
<blockquote>The new bilateral trade deal with Japan will protect our farmers by giving them an alternative market for the agricultural exports that Beijing had previously promised to purchase … The impact of this trade deal on our economy can not be overstated — <a href="https://iowaagriculture.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">85 percent</a> of Iowa’s geography is currently used for farming. Iowa is the leading producer of both corn and eggs in the U.S., and Iowa farmers raise one-third of the nation’s hogs … All told, some 87,000 farms and 129,000 farm operators are <a href="https://www.iowafarmbureau.com/About" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">based in the great state of Iowa</a>, making agriculture the backbone of our state’s economy. The Iowa Farm Bureau further estimates that the industry pumps a whopping $112.2 billion a year into Iowa’s economy while supporting 1 out of every 5 jobs in the state.</blockquote>
<a href="http://southeastagnet.com/2019/08/25/ag-groups-celebrate-trade-agreement-japan/">Southeast AG Net</a> quoted U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue stating of the deal with Japan:
<blockquote>Japan is a significant market for United States agriculture exports, making today a good day for American agriculture. By removing existing barriers for our products, we will be able to sell more to the Japanese markets. At the same time we will able to close gaps to better allow us to compete on a level playing field with our competitors.</blockquote>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">File this in the &#8216;why is Biden even running for president?&#8217; drawer.
Reporter mentions Iowa&#8217;s economy is booming.
Reporter: &#8220;Why should people want to make a change?&#8221;
Biden: &#8220;Well that&#8217;s up to them to decide.&#8221;
Reporter: Well make your case?&#8221;
Biden: &#8220;I&#8217;m not going to.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/edmWgsDgRK">pic.twitter.com/edmWgsDgRK</a>
— Andrew Clark (@AndrewHClark) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewHClark/status/1176236079193755648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>

Joe Biden Iowa.jpg

Biden Asked To Make His Case For President, Responds: ‘I’m Not Going To’

Oh the hypocrisy.
Democrats running for the 2020 presidential nomination have been moaning and whining about meat-eaters, who they claim are somehow destroying the environment with their diets. You see, farting cows add methane to the atmosphere and that&#8217;s causing global warming, they say.
&#8220;Listen, we’ve got to address factory farming,&#8221; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in February. &#8220;Maybe we shouldn’t be eating a hamburger for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Like, let’s keep it real,” said the 29-year-old former bartender, who Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has called &#8220;the future of the party.&#8221;
But that didn&#8217;t stop 17 of the 19 remaining candidates from descending on Iowa on Saturday to participate in the Polk County Steak Fry.
&#8220;Organizers grilled 10,500 steaks for attendees on Saturday, along with 1,000 vegan burgers. There is only one vegan candidate in the presidential race: Senator Cory Booker,&#8221; <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iowa-steak-fry-live-stream-presidential-candidates-today-2019-09-21/">CBS News</a> reported.
Many of the White House hopefuls donned aprons and grabbed spatulas to flip steaks at the grills.
Somehow, a photographer — apparently inside the grill — snapped a bunch of photos.
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The candidates were also super-excited to be there, dancing with attendees.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">.<a href="https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KamalaHarris</a> enters the Steak Fry in Des Moines <a href="https://t.co/I4NmoVJXDz">pic.twitter.com/I4NmoVJXDz</a>
— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnnieGrayerCNN/status/1175454567955386368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">I asked Senator Amy Klobuchar how her beer is at today’s Polk County Steak Fry— she flipped a campaign stump line, telling me, like her presidency, it’s “all beer, no foam.” <a href="https://t.co/IdXuudXjOs">pic.twitter.com/IdXuudXjOs</a>
— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) <a href="https://twitter.com/DJJudd/status/1175453461862895616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Brought our own flavor to the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SteakFry?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SteakFry</a>. <a href="https://t.co/pYTE44QM4W">pic.twitter.com/pYTE44QM4W</a>
— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) <a href="https://twitter.com/JulianCastro/status/1175453700191674369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Even tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang got in on the act, despite his stance on meat.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">That steak made me angry. <a href="https://t.co/4c6d87XSzx">pic.twitter.com/4c6d87XSzx</a>
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1175501003690524679?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Yang is not a meat-lover. During a climate change forum hosted by MSNBC on Thursday, Yang was asked by an audience member about what &#8220;policy adjustments&#8221; he’d make to “curb expansion and reduce the environmental impact of the cattle industry” in order to “reduce demand.”
&#8220;Cattle is very energy-consuming and energy-expensive. And if you project forward on what we would need to do to reduce emissions, you would want to modify Americans&#8217; diets over time,&#8221; Yang said.
&#8220;Now, some of that is happening naturally through education. I do think it’s difficult to regulate diets. So what you would want to do again is you’d want those cattle producers to have to internalize the cost of emissions. Because if your cattle ends up polluting a lot, which they do, just naturally — we don’t hate them for it. I mean, they&#8217;re just big animals. Don’t hate the cattle, hate the — whatever.
&#8220;So then, what that would naturally do, and some people are going to hate this, but it would probably make those products more expensive. And that is appropriate because there’s a cost to producing food in that way. And so if you were to make it more expensive, then you would end up changing consumption patterns over time.&#8221;
Several other Democratic presidential contenders have been taking aim at meat. In another climate change forum earlier this month, several said laws need to be changed.
Sen. Kamala Harris of California was asked if she supports changing “dietary guidelines to reduce the consumption of red meat in light of the impact of climate change.”
“The answer is yes,&#8221; she said. “The balance that we have to strike here, frankly, is about what government can and should do around creating incentives and then banning certain behaviors,” she said.
But Harris also said: &#8220;To be very honest with you, I love cheeseburgers from time to time. I just do.&#8221;

Joe Biden at the Iowa Steak Fr

HYPOCRISY: Meat-Hating Democrats Descend On Iowa Steak Fry, Grill Up 10,000 Steaks

Andrew Yang

Kamala Harris

A campaign event for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reportedly got out of hand over the weekend — or, more precisely, got too &#8220;hands on.&#8221;
According to the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bernie-sanders-staffers-manhandle-press-at-iowa-state-fair">Washington Examiner</a>&#8216;s Joseph Simonson, a campaign staffer for the democratic socialist was involved in a &#8220;confrontation&#8221; with reporters during a press event hosted by the Des Moines Register following Sanders stump speech at the Iowa State Fair on Sunday.
&#8220;The confrontation erupted after members of the campaign relentlessly pushed the local journalists to make room for Sanders as he made his way to various attractions at the fair on Sunday,&#8221; Simonson reports. &#8221; &#8230; Security for the event, as well as members of Sanders&#8217; campaign, repeatedly grabbed and shoved members of the press. One staffer for the Des Moines Register pushed a gate into a reporter for the Washington Examiner after telling him that &#8216;not all press&#8217; would be allowed to follow Sanders around.&#8221;
Simonson describes the pool of reporters as having &#8220;erupted in chaos&#8221; over the staffer&#8217;s alleged overly aggressive handling of the press, particularly one female photographer who he reports was pushed &#8220;many times.&#8221;
&#8220;Do not put your hands on me,&#8221; the photographer said. &#8220;You keep pushing me.&#8221;
Simonson notes that the incident was significant enough that one of the other reporters felt compelled to make sure the female photographer was okay. Several journalists complained in the press office about the campaign&#8217;s treatment of the press, he reports.
While the <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/08/11/bernie-sanders-election-2020-iowa-state-fair-soapbox-caucus-us-senate-vermont-independent-democrat/1881509001/">Des Moines Register</a> hosted the &#8220;chaotic&#8221; event, the outlet&#8217;s coverage of Sanders&#8217; appearance doesn&#8217;t mention the confrontations or complaints, focusing instead on Sanders&#8217; appeal to Iowa&#8217;s caucusogoers, who hold a prominent role in selecting the Democratic candidate. &#8220;Iowa caucusgoers in 2016 propelled Sanders to within a third of a percentage point of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton&#8217;s showing in the first-in-the-nation caucuses,&#8221; the paper points out.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49818/bernie-sanders-campaign-hit-unfair-labor-practice-amanda-prestigiacomo">Bernie Sanders Campaign Hit With Unfair Labor Practice Complaint</a>
Since getting so close to the nomination, Sanders suggested, the Democratic Party has moved in his more &#8220;radical and extreme&#8221; direction.
&#8220;When I came here four years ago, many of the ideas that I talked about, at that point, seemed very, very radical and kind of extreme,&#8221; said Sanders, the paper reports. &#8220;Well, it turned out they were not so radical or extreme for the people of Iowa.&#8221;
After accusing Trump of being racist, a xenophobe, sexist, a religious bigot and a pathological liar, Sanders urged Iowa Democrats to see the moment for what it is: their chance to &#8220;stand up to racism and divisiveness.&#8221;
&#8220;This is the moment history will judge us by,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This is the moment we stand up to racism and divisiveness. This is the moment we bring our people together and create an economy and a government not dominated by the billionaires, but an economy and a government that works for all of us.&#8221;
The Des Moines Register notes that the crowd that gathered for Sanders&#8217; speech on Sunday &#8220;appeared comparable in number to the one U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts drew on Saturday.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49749/watch-anybody-economics-degree-would-have-molly-prince">WATCH: Dan Crenshaw Lights Up Bernie Sanders Over Minimum Wage Hike</a>
This article has been revised for clarity.

Sanders Campaign Gets Physical With Press: ‘Do Not Put Your Hands On Me’

Democratic Party

A farmer in Harlan, Iowa, confronted far-left Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren on Thursday over her support for socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s (D-NY) &#8220;Green New Deal,&#8221; which has raised the prospect of eliminating cows to help fight climate change.
The farmer expressed his concern to Warren about changing the feed that cattle are given, warning that it could lead to more carbon dioxide production.
&#8220;I would say we shouldn&#8217;t get rid of, you know the &#8216;Green New Deal&#8217; says we need to get rid of cows, I don&#8217;t agree with that,&#8221; the farmer said.
Warren responded: &#8220;Eh.&#8221;
The farmer then escalated his frustrations with Warren, saying louder: &#8220;My point is we have become so ignorant of the basic principles of biology in food production that we have said we answer them all through technology instead of letting mother earth and having respect.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Iowa farmer grills Elizabeth Warren and Democrats over wanting to eliminate cows with the Green New Deal.
Warren&#8217;s response: &#8220;Ehhh.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/2yQPCJ1fCb">pic.twitter.com/2yQPCJ1fCb</a>
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1159498749854531589?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/green-new-deal-would-cost-93-trillion-or-600g-per-household-study-says">$93 trillion</a> Green New Deal has been widely mocked across the political spectrum, including by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is the most powerful Democrat in the United States.
&#8220;How bad is the Green New Deal paper? Putting aside the fact that, as written, it would receive a C+ in any high school English class, it essentially articulates a magical world in which the skies rain chocolate, the world is powered by unicorn farts, and AOC dances through the gumdrop meadows to Lisztomania,&#8221; Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43194/aocs-green-new-deal-proposal-one-stupidest-ben-shapiro">wrote</a>. &#8220;The proposal calls for the United States to be free of carbon emissions within 10 years without the use of nuclear power. It calls for every building in the United States to be replaced or retrofitted in green fashion. It calls for universal healthcare, free college education, the replacement of airplanes with high-speed trains, charging stations &#8216;everywhere&#8217; (this is the sort of exactness the proposal contains), replacement of &#8216;every combustion-engine vehicle,&#8217; government-provided jobs, family and medical leave, vacations, retirement security, and the abolition of &#8216;farting cows.&#8217; It also calls for total &#8216;economic security&#8217; for anyone &#8216;unable or unwilling to work.'&#8221;

elizabeth_warren.jpg

WATCH: Iowa Farmer Grills Warren Over Green New Deal Wanting To Eliminate Cows

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Democratic Socialism

Green New Deal

Leftism

Progressivism

Socialism

On November 28, 2009, Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada ran out of his parents’ Council Bluffs, Iowa, home without shoes during a snowstorm. They never saw him again.
The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/07/23/larry-ely-murillo-moncada-council-bluffs-disappearance-cooler-no-frills-supermarket/">reported</a> that his parents filed a missing-person report and called anyone they could who might have seen him. Friends and family members posted fliers asking if anyone had seen him.
Ten years later and the family still had no answers as to what happened to their 25-year-old son. Last week, they learned that he had been a mile away the whole time, trapped behind a cooler at the supermarket where he had worked.
Investigators pieced together Murillo-Moncada’s final hours. He left his parents’ home at 6:15pm without shoes and without his keys and car, Sgt. Brandon Danielson <a href="https://fox42kptm.com/news/local/cbpd-body-found-at-old-council-bluffs-supermarket-been-there-extended-period-of-time">told KPTM</a> on Monday.
&#8220;He went missing in the middle of a blizzard,&#8221; he said. &#8220;He had left with just blue clothing on, no socks no shoes, didn&#8217;t take his I.D. or his cell phone.&#8221;
His mother previously had <a href="https://www.nonpareilonline.com/archive/bluffs-man-reported-missing/article_a7d34744-a2a5-5e34-b1f3-5d84f77b75c2.html">told the Daily Nonpareil</a> through an interpreter that Murillo-Moncada had been prescribed an antidepressant just days before he disappeared but reacted negatively while taking it. She said he started to hear voices, and the confusion and disorientation that led him to seeking medical help didn’t go away. She said he started having hallucinations and began thinking “somebody was following him, and he was scared.”
Investigators now say that after Murillo-Moncada left his parents’ home he went to the No Frills Supermarket where he worked and scaled one of the large coolers in the storage area. He apparently fell 12 feet and was trapped between one of the units and the wall. Since the coolers are loud, no one heard his screams. Former employees told police they regularly climbed on the coolers.
“It’s so loud, there’s probably no way anyone heard him,” Danielson said.
Police visited the supermarket when they began the investigation, but since no one heard Murillo-Moncada’s screams, they didn’t know where he was. His body was badly decomposed, but clothing matched what he was wearing the night he disappeared and DNA was used to confirm his identity. An autopsy was conducted and found no signs of trauma. His death has been classified as accidental, the Post reported.
The No Frills Supermarket closed down in 2016. When a contractor came in to clear the place out, including the coolers, Murillo-Moncada’s body was found.
“This is the first time in my career that I’ve seen a body in this type of condition,” Danielson told KPTM.
The outlet had previously reported that a body had been found in January, and we are just now learning that it is Murillo-Moncada.
Danielson also <a href="https://www.ketv.com/article/body-found-between-shelving-coolers-council-bluffs-supermarket-larry-ely-murillo-moncada/26028756">told KETV</a> that Murillo-Moncada’s mother somehow always believed her son was at the supermarket.
“The mother, she kind of had an idea that he had never left the No Frills,” Danielson told the outlet. “I don’t know how she came up with that idea.”

He Disappeared 10 Years Ago. Now His Body Has Been Found Behind A Cooler At The Supermarket Where He Worked.

Terry Branstad, the mustachioed former Republican governor of Iowa and present U.S. ambassador to China, is <a href="https://www.kcci.com/article/trial-begins-over-alleged-discrimination-by-former-gov-branstad/27791696">now on trial in state court</a> back in the Hawkeye State. Branstad, you see, had the temerity to request the resignation, in 2011, of a leftist mandarin named Chris Godfrey, who served as commissioner of the Iowa Division of Workers&#8217; Compensation. Godfrey was, reliable sources tell me, unanimously despised by the Iowa Association of Business and Industry (Iowa&#8217;s closest equivalent to a statewide chamber of commerce) due to his deeply held hostility to business interests. After Godfrey &#8212; who had been both <a href="https://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2019/06/evidence-allowed-in-branstad-trial-should-cause-concern/">initially appointed and reappointed</a> by Democratic governors &#8212; refused to resign upon Branstad&#8217;s request, Branstad slashed his pay by 35%.
All standard fare for a newly elected Republican governor looking to re-shape the direction of his state&#8217;s anti-business governance, right?
Well. As it turns out, Chris Godfrey is an open homosexual. So Godfrey now claims, in a lawsuit that went to trial in state court in Iowa <a href="https://www.kcci.com/article/trial-begins-over-alleged-discrimination-by-former-gov-branstad/27791696">last week</a>, that his sexual orientation is the reason that Branstad &#8220;retaliated&#8221; against him.
Godfrey offers zero direct evidence that anti-homosexual animus had anything whatsoever to do with the fact that a newly elected Republican governor of Iowa, upon taking office, sought to rework his administration to cleanse it of anti-business bureaucrats who were holdovers of previous Democratic administrations. Even more interesting, Roxanne Conlin, who is Godfrey&#8217;s attorney, seems to have a personal vendetta of sorts against Branstad &#8212; she ran against him in a decades-old gubernatorial race, as a Democrat, and lost.
And yet the facts actually get even more bizarre. The trial court judge assigned to the case made some <strike>utterly insane</strike> bizarre recent rulings as to what types of purely circumstantial evidence to allow at trial. You see, the trial judge here seems hell-bent on ensuring Godfrey has every possible means available to &#8220;prove&#8221; anti-homosexual retaliatory animus on the part of Branstad, his chief of staff, and his legal advisor. Here is how a local Iowa blogger <a href="https://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2019/06/evidence-allowed-in-branstad-trial-should-cause-concern/">summarizes</a> the evidentiary proceedings thus far (I have also directly reviewed Branstad&#8217;s petition for certiorari to the Iowa Supreme Court, for corroboration):
<blockquote>
The trial started last week with District Court Judge Brad McCall, a Culver appointee and former plaintiff&#8217;s attorney, presiding. McCall, who is a district court judge in Jasper County (Judicial District 5A), was assigned the trail despite its location in Polk County (Judicial District 5C).
Branstad&#8217;s attorneys, Katie Graham and David Bower, petitioned the Iowa Supreme Court to place a stay on the trial until the resolution of a dispute over evidence McCall allowed.
According to the petition, McCall ruled that the following &#8220;circumstantial evidence&#8221; is admissible at trial:
<ul>
<li>Evidence of candidate/Governor Branstad&#8217;s public policy positions on Varnum v. Brien, same-sex marriage, and the constitutional amendment process in Iowa;</li>
<li>Evidence of Governor Branstad, Boeyink, and Findley&#8217;s affiliation with the &#8220;anti-gay&#8221; Republican Party of Iowa;</li>
<li>The private, religious beliefs of individual members of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI&#8221;) regarding whether homosexuality is sinful; and</li>
<li>Opinion testimony that the Republican Party of Iowa is &#8220;anti-gay&#8221; from elected officials who had no involvement in Governor Branstad&#8217;s decisions.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
Let&#8217;s translate this into non-legalese. The trial court is permitting evidence to be entered with respect to Branstad&#8217;s personal thoughts on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varnum_v._Brien">Varnum v. Brien</a>, the outrageously activist Iowa Supreme Court decision wherein the Court held the state&#8217;s traditional marriage definition to be incompatible with the Iowa Constitution, as well as his personal policy views on what the state&#8217;s definition of marriage ought to be. The trial court is furthermore permitting evidence with respect to a mere affiliation with the Republican Party of Iowa allegedly being &#8220;anti-gay&#8221; due to the fact that the state&#8217;s GOP affirms the conjugal, one-man/one-woman definition of marriage to which disparate religions, ethnicities, and cultures from all around the globe had all adhered for millennia, in uninterrupted and unquestioned fashion, prior to the revisionist fad to redefine marriage as an institution oriented toward adult romance and not toward the rearing of children. Even worse, the trial court is permitting evidence with respect to whether the (presumptively Christian) individual members of the Iowa Association of Business at issue have the audacity to actually believe what the Bible says about homosexual conduct!
In a word, Christianity is on trial here in Iowa. Indeed, the very notion of whether it is &#8220;anti-gay&#8221; to believe in the once-universal conjugal definition of marriage is also on trial.
This ought to be deeply, deeply harrowing for anyone who supports religious liberty. &#8220;[Judge] McCall&#8217;s rulings have put Iowa&#8217;s freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of association at risk,&#8221; <a href="https://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2019/06/evidence-allowed-in-branstad-trial-should-cause-concern/">concluded</a> the local Iowa blogger, Shane Vander Hart. &#8220;By not stopping it, the Iowa Supreme Court just gave its tacit approval.&#8221;
The Iowa judiciary, in direct opposition to the Midwestern Christian sensibilities of the Iowa people, is disproportionately leftist. Nonetheless, God-willing, the judiciary will come to its senses and exculpate Branstad and his former legal advisor and chief of staff. But the fact that this case is even being tried &#8212; and that this outrageous circumstantial &#8220;evidence&#8221; is even being admitted into court &#8212; ought to be deeply depressing for patriotic Americans of all political and religious stripes.

HAMMER: Christianity And The GOP Are Both On Trial In Iowa. Here’s What You Need To Know.

Christianity

Homosexuality

Lawsuit

LGBT

Republican Party

A Vox writer exposed their lack of knowledge of anything not relating to a city on Tuesday after taking a swipe at President Donald Trump while he addressed a crowd in Iowa.
At one point Trump began speaking about access to broadband, and explained how his administration has helped rural communities.
&#8220;We secured nearly $1.2 billion to expand rural broadband, which you need very badly. You need very badly,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;They have not treated the West well with broadband, with anything having to do with the word &#8216;computer.&#8217; I look at some of those tractors and they don&#8217;t even hook up.&#8221;
This quote was used to mock Trump, but ended up saying more about the Vox writer than it did about Trump.
&#8220;Beyond parody &#8212; Fox Business cuts away from Trump&#8217;s speech right after he laments, bizarrely, that tractors can&#8217;t hook up to the internet,&#8221; wrote Aaron Rupar, an associate editor at Vox.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Beyond parody &#8212; Fox Business cuts away from Trump&#8217;s speech right after he laments, bizarrely, that tractors can&#8217;t hook up to the internet <a href="https://t.co/hbYoYm2UgO">pic.twitter.com/hbYoYm2UgO</a>
&#8212; Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1138563456985128964?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Farming, like all other aspects of our economy, has increasingly become technologically advanced. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) took to Twitter to explain today&#8217;s farming to Rupar:
&#8220;This might be news to folks in New York or D.C., but in Iowa we know internet-connected farm equipment is critical for precision agriculture. And it&#8217;s one of the reasons I&#8217;m working to improve rural broadband speed and access.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This might be news to folks in New York or D.C., but in Iowa we know internet-connected farm equipment is critical for precision agriculture. And it&#8217;s one of the reasons I&#8217;m working to improve rural broadband speed and access. <a href="https://t.co/iQPt2uWoHB">https://t.co/iQPt2uWoHB</a>
&#8212; Joni Ernst (@joniernst) <a href="https://twitter.com/joniernst/status/1138846752612802560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, responded to Ernst with several examples he has seen of how technology helps farmers.
&#8220;America&#8217;s farms and ranches increasingly rely on technology. I&#8217;ve seen it for myself, from 4G LTE-connected soil probes to WiFi-managed fertilizer apps to GPS-driven combines to fiber-fed feedlots,&#8221; Pai tweeted.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
America&#8217;s farms and ranches increasingly rely on technology. I&#8217;ve seen it for myself, from 4G LTE-connected soil probes to WiFi-managed fertilizer apps to GPS-driven combines to fiber-fed feedlots. Thank you for your leadership on rural <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/broadband?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#broadband</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/SenJoniErnst?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenJoniErnst</a>!
&#8212; Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AjitPaiFCC/status/1138963537857011712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
It does not appear Rupar has explained or walked back his comments.

Vox Writer Confused After Trump’s Tractor, Internet Claims. Iowa Senator Sets The Record Straight.

It&#8217;s been a rough week for former Vice President Joe Biden. Between allegations that he plagiarized elements of his climate plan to a Hyde Amendment flip-flop for the ages, the front-runner for the 2020 Democratic nomination has been fending off nothing but attacks since the beginning of June.
And now, it seems, his 20-point lead in the polls is slowly shrinking.
<a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/caucus/2019/06/09/iowa-poll-biden-leads-democrats-bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-pete-buttigieg-caucus-2020/1360801001/">A Des Moines Register</a> survey of likely Iowa caucus voters still has Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders comfortably in the lead of other Democratic contenders, but Biden&#8217;s once 30-point margin over his closest opponent has been slashed by a third.
Sanders fares little better. His once commanding lead over the rest of the field has shrunk to a single point, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg have now cleared the double digits, sitting at 15% and 14%, respectively, behind Sanders&#8217; 16%.
The Register&#8217;s poll also shows an &#8220;evening&#8221; of the rest of the field and several candidates, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who spent the weekend rubbing elbows with LGBT activists in Iowa, at a firm 0%. Although he isn&#8217;t viewed as a serious candidate anywhere in the United States, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was &#8220;not listed by a single poll respondent as either first or second choice for president.&#8221;
Support for specific candidates, the Register suggests, is &#8220;solidifying,&#8221; and Biden&#8217;s once-formidable lead is normalizing into something he could conceivably hold through the Iowa caucuses early next year. But Biden is running into trouble in Iowa in ways Democrats promoting the former vice president&#8217;s more &#8220;moderate&#8221; campaign might not have foreseen.
This weekend, nearly the entire field of 2020 Democratic hopefuls descended on Iowa to participate in LGBT Pride parades and give speeches at outdoor events. Sunday, at least 20 of the two dozen candidates competing for Iowa&#8217;s delegates will participate in the single largest Democratic event ahead of the Iowa caucuses: the annual Iowa Democratic Party fundraiser.
Joe Biden, the front-runner, won&#8217;t be there. He&#8217;s skipping the event, reportedly, for a high-dollar fundraiser elsewhere &#8212; part of his plan to bypass the Democratic primary process altogether and focus on the presidential election (on the assumption, of course, that he has no need to compete against the rest of the Democratic field).
Last week, Biden balked at his own support for the Hyde Amendment, as well, claiming that &#8220;insight&#8221; had led him to abandon his decades-long support for the bipartisan measure, which protects taxpayers from having to fund abortions. And while this may not affect him among Democrats &#8212; it may, in fact, make him more palatable to &#8220;progressives&#8221; who fear running Biden sacrifices principles for electoral success &#8212; it may affect him among Iowa voters, who are historically skeptical of candidates who appear feckless.
Biden is also now the target of most of his fellow candidates for the nomination. At an event Saturday, Buttigieg added a second refrain to his rant against President Donald Trump, lashing out at Biden for playing on nostalgia for the Barack Obama era, <a href="http://not listed by a single poll respondent as either first or second choice for president.">according to Fox News</a>.
&#8220;Don&#8217;t listen to anybody in either party who says we can just go back to what we were doing,&#8221; Buttigieg said. &#8220;We in the LGBT community know that when we hear phrases like &#8216;Make America Great Again,&#8217; that that American past was never quite as great as advertised.&#8221;

TOUGH WEEK: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders Tank In New Iowa Poll

The New York City Hall Bureau Chief for Politico, in Iowa to cover New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio&#8217;s campaign for president, issued a tweet mocking the state which triggered one well-known Twitter Iowa conservative to fire off a blizzard of hilarious responses.
Sally Goldenberg, obviously disturbed to find herself in so-called &#8220;fly-over country,&#8221; tweeted: &#8220;Observations from Iowa &#8211; it is very flat, driving is monotonous, there is more unbuilt land in one block than NYC has in an entire borough, dirt roads are terrifying, no one carries almond milk and caucus-goers are extremely well-informed.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Observations from Iowa &#8211; it is very flat, driving is monotonous, there is more unbuilt land in one block than NYC has in an entire borough, dirt roads are terrifying, no one carries almond milk and caucus-goers are extremely well-informed.
&#8212; Sally Goldenberg (@SallyGold) <a href="https://twitter.com/SallyGold/status/1129622489871638528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
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She added, &#8220;And <a href="https://twitter.com/ndhapple">@ndhapple</a> and I will never be so happy to step onto a subway again.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
And <a href="https://twitter.com/ndhapple?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ndhapple</a> and I will never be so happy to step onto a subway again.
&#8212; Sally Goldenberg (@SallyGold) <a href="https://twitter.com/SallyGold/status/1129622802988961793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
That did it. As <a href="https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2019/05/20/iowahawk-unleashes-brutal-thread-over-politico-reporters-observations-from-iowa-hot-take/">Twitchy </a>reported, David Burge, aka &#8220;Iowahawk,&#8221; then decimated the New York reporter on Twitter with this series of responses:
&#8220;Legit this is the funniest thing I&#8217;ve ever read.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Legit this is the funniest thing I&#8217;ve ever read<a href="https://t.co/bqpfQ4cd8d">https://t.co/bqpfQ4cd8d</a>
&#8212; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1130094371834159109?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Iowa should change its state motto to &#8220;Monotonously Terrifying.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Iowa should change its state motto to &#8220;Monotonously Terrifying&#8221;
&#8212; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1130097844579459074?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;dirt roads&#8221;? &#8220;blocks?&#8221; Next time I go to New York I&#8217;m going to try to describe some of them thar cee-ment people barns.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8220;dirt roads&#8221;? 
&#8220;blocks?&#8221; 
Next time I go to New York I&#8217;m going to try to describe some of them thar cee-ment people barns
&#8212; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1130101225754701825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;OMG I feel like Neil Armstrong <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OneSmallStepForMan?src=hash">#OneSmallStepForMan</a>.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
OMG I feel like Neil Armstrong <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OneSmallStepForMan?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OneSmallStepForMan</a> <a href="https://t.co/tub2KuIWEZ">pic.twitter.com/tub2KuIWEZ</a>
&#8212; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1130103043251425286?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;I guess being called &#8220;extremely well-informed&#8221; is a compliment, but it&#8217;s sorta like being told you&#8217;re very handsome by the Elephant Man.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
I guess being called &#8220;extremely well-informed&#8221; is a compliment, but it&#8217;s sorta like being told you&#8217;re very handsome by the Elephant Man
&#8212; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1130105302114799621?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
He noted, &#8220;A native of Elizabeth, New Jersey, Sally now lives in Brooklyn. She has a bachelor&#8217;s degree in Journalism from Rutgers University.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8220;A native of Elizabeth, New Jersey, Sally now lives in Brooklyn. She has a bachelor&#8217;s degree in Journalism from Rutgers University.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/P4WSAtK63n">https://t.co/P4WSAtK63n</a><a href="https://t.co/B703qoNMsr">https://t.co/B703qoNMsr</a>
&#8212; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1130108502121373696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Sorry your stay was unsatisfactory ma&#8217;am, next time we&#8217;ll be sure to spray everything down with 100 million gallons of hobo piss.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Sorry your stay was unsatisfactory ma&#8217;am, next time we&#8217;ll be sure to spray everything down with 100 million gallons of hobo piss<a href="https://t.co/qLnpaouXIY">https://t.co/qLnpaouXIY</a>
&#8212; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1130111051993894912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Politico editor: we&#8217;re not going to be caught by surprise again like in 2016, let&#8217;s send our top Brooklyn cat lady to find out what&#8217;s going on out there.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Politico editor: we&#8217;re not going to be caught by surprise again like in 2016, let&#8217;s send our top Brooklyn cat lady to find out what&#8217;s going on out there
&#8212; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1130116079420944384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Roll up your windows when you drive through our hood, yo.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Roll up your windows when you drive through our hood, yo<a href="https://t.co/15TmtOQT18">https://t.co/15TmtOQT18</a>
&#8212; David Burge (@iowahawkblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1130119530829832194?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Goldenberg&#8217;s view from her perch in New York is reminiscent of the infamous Saul Steinberg illustration on the cover of the March 29, 1976 issue of The New Yorker which was supposed to represent the view from Manhattan of the rest of the world.
Steinberg&#8217;s illustration featured the entire bottom half of the image as Manhattan&#8217;s 9th Avenue, 10th Avenue and the Hudson River. The upper half contained the rest of the world; the rest of the United States is equivalent to three New York City blocks and has four boundaries: New Jersey, Canada, Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Only five American cities are listed: Washington D.C., Chicago, Kansas City, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. Three states are named: Nebraska, Texas, and Utah; beyond the Pacific Ocean China, Japan, and Russia are labeled. Europe does not exist.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
How New Yorkers See The World: View of the World from 9th Avenue &#8211; <a href="http://t.co/mBmTOyPyVt">http://t.co/mBmTOyPyVt</a> <a href="http://t.co/S5s0SZgCoc">pic.twitter.com/S5s0SZgCoc</a>
&#8212; Brilliant Maps (@BrilliantMaps) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrilliantMaps/status/607627605928312833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2015</a></blockquote>
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In 2017, a writer for New York Magazine, defending against the charge that liberal elitists look down their noses at Middle America, <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/do-coastal-liberals-hate-middle-america.html">wrote</a> that the liberal elitists really had middle America&#8217;s best interests at heart:
<blockquote>
It&#8217;s always a good idea to make some effort to understand people with different backgrounds, different views, different life circumstances, and yes, even different prejudices than our own. But to the extent that liberals genuinely believe their policies are best for the whole country &#8212; you know, the country they are suspected of loving too little &#8212; then arguing that the Heartland is worse for their absence is an act not of &#8220;elite&#8221; disdain but of communal affection.
</blockquote>
That may not be a perspective shared by folks in so-called &#8220;fly-over country.&#8221;

Politico Reporter From NY Mocks Iowa. Iowan Responds With Hilarious Tweet Thread.

New York

Declared 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden&#8217;s lengthy record bit him in the behind again on Thursday, as racially charged comments from Biden back in 2007 began to recirculate online.
When Biden was <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/10/25/biden-stumbles-over-education-question/">asked</a> by The Washington Post about the discrepancy in school performance in Iowa compared to schools in Washington, D.C., the Democrat cited the high population of African-Americans and other minorities in the D.C. area.
&#8220;There&#8217;s less than one percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than four of five percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you&#8217;re dealing with,&#8221; he told the paper.
At the time, the Post chalked up Biden&#8217;s comments as a &#8220;stumble&#8221; &#8212; leeway the mainstream press would not likely afford to anyone on the Right, certainly not in 2019.
The Democrat went on to discuss &#8220;dysfunctional homes&#8221; in minority communities and suggested minority mothers don&#8217;t talk to their children &#8220;from the time they&#8217;re born.&#8221;
&#8220;When you have children coming from dysfunctional homes, when you have children coming from homes where there&#8217;s no books, where the mother from the time they&#8217;re born doesn&#8217;t talk to them &#8212; as opposed to the mother in Iowa who&#8217;s sitting out there and talks to them, the kid starts out with a 300-word larger vocabulary at age three,&#8221; Biden said. &#8220;Half this education gap exists before the kid steps foot in the classroom.&#8221;
<a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/10/25/biden-stumbles-over-education-question/">According</a> to a CNN report published shortly after Biden&#8217;s comments, the Democrat&#8217;s &#8220;campaign quickly sought to clarify the remarks, saying in a statement that the senator was not making a &#8216;race-based distinction,&#8217; but rather a &#8216;socio-economic&#8217; one.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
reporter: why are schools in iowa are better than DC? 
joe biden: lol black people of course <a href="https://t.co/T916JDaFJ1">pic.twitter.com/T916JDaFJ1</a>
&#8212; josh (@lyftrs) <a href="https://twitter.com/lyftrs/status/1125894701117267973?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Similarly, a racially charged clip of Biden from 2007 discussing condom use in the black community and AIDS testing re-emerged online last week. &#8220;On a debate stage alongside Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, Biden bragged about spending his entire summer trying to convince black men to wear condoms, scolded &#8216;the community&#8217; for being &#8216;in denial&#8217; about AIDS, and praised Obama for getting an AIDS test,&#8221; The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46813/flashback-biden-says-he-spent-all-summer-trying-amanda-prestigiacomo">reported</a>.
&#8220;As Hillary points out, there&#8217;s neglect in the part of the medical and the white community focusing on educating the minority community out there. I spent last summer going through the black sections of my town holding rallies in parks trying to get black men to understand it&#8217;s not unmanly to wear a condom, getting women to understand they can say no, getting people in the position where testing matters,&#8221; said Biden. &#8220;I got tested for AIDS. I know Barack got tested for AIDS. There&#8217;s no shame in being tested for AIDS. It&#8217;s an important thing.&#8221;
Obama made note during the debate that he got tested for AIDS alongside his wife Michelle in an effort to raise awareness about the disease.
&#8220;The fact of the matter is, the community, the community is engaged in the community. They&#8217;re engaged in denial. No one wants to talk about it in the community,&#8221; the former VP continued.
&#8220;And we do not have enough leaders in the community and outside the community demanding we face the reality; confront the men in the community, as well as the women, letting them know there are alternatives,&#8221; added Biden.

Biden Flashback: D.C. Schools Worse Than Iowa Because Of High Black Population

Race

Washington D.C.

According to new Monmouth University <a href="https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll-ia-041119/">polling</a>, former vice president Joe Biden is the (very, very) early 2020 Democratic front-runner in the all-important first state of Iowa:
<blockquote>
In a field of 24 announced and potential candidates, Biden holds the lead with 27% support among Democratic voters who are likely to attend the Iowa caucuses in February. He is followed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (16%), South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg (9%), Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (7%), California Sen. Kamala Harris (7%), former Texas Rep. Beto O&#8217;Rourke (6%), Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (4%), New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (3%), and former cabinet secretary Julián Castro (2%). Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, California Rep. Eric Swalwell, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang each receive 1% support from likely caucusgoers.
</blockquote>
Monmouth also breaks down the demographic and ideological sources of the early support for &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Biden-Time-Crazy-Uncle-Words/dp/1938067967">Crazy Uncle Joe</a>&#8220;:
<blockquote>
Biden does especially well among voters age 65 and older (44%), those earning less than $50,000 a year (38%), and those without a college degree (34%). On the ideological spectrum, Biden&#8217;s support comes more from self-described moderates and conservatives (35%) than from liberals (20%), but the same is true for Sanders although to a lesser degree (20% non-liberals, 13% liberals).
</blockquote>
According to prediction market website <a href="https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3633/Who-will-win-the-2020-Democratic-presidential-nomination">PredictIt</a>, Biden is currently second to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43796/hammer-bernie-sanders-entire-worldview-grotesquely-josh-hammer">socialist</a> Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in overall 2020 presidential nomination odds.
The new Iowa polling comes amidst heightened backlash that Biden has faced, of late, for some of his &#8220;touchy&#8221; treatment of and interactions with women, going back decades. As The Daily Wire has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45393/breaking-another-women-comes-forward-accuse-joe-ryan-saavedra">reported</a>, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45530/three-more-women-accuse-biden-improper-behavior-james-barrett">barrage</a> of women have come forward over the past month to accuse Biden of inappropriately touching them in prior decades. Biden, who has not yet formally tossed his hat into the 2020 presidential ring, even released a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45509/watch-biden-releases-video-explaining-his-hands-hank-berrien">video statement</a> addressing the accusations:
<blockquote>
&#8220;For the coming month I expect to be talking about a whole lot of issues and I&#8217;ll always be direct with you, but today I want to talk about gestures of support and encouragement that I&#8217;ve made to women and some men that made them uncomfortable,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And I&#8217;m always trying to be, in my career, I&#8217;ve always tried to make a human connection; that&#8217;s my responsibility, I think. I shake hands; I hug people; I grab men and women by the shoulders and say, &#8216;You can do this.&#8217; Whether they&#8217;re women, men, young, old, it&#8217;s the way I&#8217;ve always been; it&#8217;s the way I&#8217;ve tried to show I care about them and I&#8217;m listening. And over the years, knowing what I&#8217;ve been through, the things that I&#8217;ve faced, I&#8217;ve found that scores, if not hundreds of people come up to me, reached out for solace and comfort. Something, something, anything that can help them get through the tragedy that they&#8217;re going through, and so, it&#8217;s just who I am.&#8221;
</blockquote>
In a Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44665/hammer-2020-democratic-field-will-come-down-josh-hammer">op-ed</a> last month, I predicted that Biden&#8217;s history with women would indeed come back to ruin his prospective 2020 candidacy.
<blockquote>
 Hold aside that Biden has not formally entered the fray yet &#8212; he probably will do so. But Biden simply has too much baggage, in the current environment. Who in their right mind thinks that coquettish creepy &#8220;Uncle Joe&#8221; is a good fit for the current #MeToo moment? Who in their right mind thinks that Biden&#8217;s formerly held views on race and crime won&#8217;t come back to destroy him in the minds of the increasingly dominant hard left faction of the Democratic base? Biden has simply been in the national spotlight for too long, and has too long a track record to cleanly avoid opposition research-driven scrutiny. And, amazingly, the man who once tag-teamed with Ted Kennedy to vilely savage Robert Bork&#8217;s judicial career is almost assuredly now too &#8220;moderate&#8221; for the batcrap crazy hard Left.
</blockquote>

New Iowa Poll: Beleaguered Biden Still Leads For Democrats

Beto O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s campaign to be president started out well enough, but things haven&#8217;t exactly taken off as expected for the former Member of Congress and once-failed Senate candidate from Texas.
O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s fundraising began with a bang; the candidate, who had never before launched a national campaign, raised $6.1 million in under 24 hours, besting a previous record set by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). But unlike Sanders, O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s numbers haven&#8217;t gone up since he announced his interest in the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/08/beto-orourke-2020-campaign-1260182">according to Politico</a>, he&#8217;s mired in the middle of the pack, competing against only second-string candidates.
Sanders is &#8220;far ahead&#8221; in both polling and fundraising (though he&#8217;s still running several points behind former Vice President Joe Biden, who hasn&#8217;t even entered the race yet), and O&#8217;Rourke is now trailing South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who quickly supplanted O&#8217;Rourke as the young upstart Democratic &#8220;golden child,&#8221; raising an impressive $7 million in just a few days on the stump, and drawing much larger crowds and much more media attention.
Beto&#8217;s also having a tough time drawing audiences in early primary states like Iowa. <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/beto-orourke-fails-to-fill-auditorium-in-iowa-city">According to Washington Examiner</a> reporter Joe Simonson, who has been following both O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s and Sanders&#8217; campaigns around Iowa, there&#8217;s no question who voters are more interested in.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
beto had a hard time filling the room, my latest from iowa city<a href="https://t.co/a6nWovkfNi">https://t.co/a6nWovkfNi</a> <a href="https://t.co/DYa6etGgq6">pic.twitter.com/DYa6etGgq6</a>
&#8212; Joe Gabriel Simonson (@SaysSimonson) <a href="https://twitter.com/SaysSimonson/status/1115291627961106433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
&#8220;O&#8217;Rourke, 46, a former Texas congressman, started 30 minutes late, and the University of Iowa student union ballroom remained less than half filled as the candidate gave his pitch to fewer than 120 students, families, and retirees before taking questions. Many of those were not committed to O&#8217;Rourke,&#8221; the Examiner reported.
That also might be an inflated number. According to the report, several students were there to get extra credit for college classes. One student who spoke to Simonson told him that he actually preferred former tech executive Andrew Yang for the Democratic nomination.
The media presence surrounding O&#8217;Rourke, the Examiner says, is also dwindling, but O&#8217;Rourke, at least, has a rosy outlook on things.
&#8220;I&#8217;m learning, I&#8217;m becoming a better candidate,&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke told reporters following his speech.&#8220;There are fewer members of the media as we&#8217;re leaving these events. I like that the ratio has changed a little bit as we have moved on, but I&#8217;m really struck by how kind people are, how seriously they take their responsibility to themselves and the rest of the country.&#8221;
One clear indication that O&#8217;Rourke is having difficulty distancing himself from other Democratic candidates is his recent rhetoric. The normally soft-spoken Texan, who prefers standing on countertops to talk with everyday Americans in coffee shops and breakfast-only diners, and who campaigned for Senate on his &#8220;common sense&#8221; progressive approach, has taken to parroting talking points that put him far left of the 2020 field.
Over the weekend, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/beto-twists-trump-words-on-ms-13-in-defending-comparison-to-nazis">Fox News reports</a>, O&#8217;Rourke took aim at President Donald Trump, but instead of sticking to tried-and-true critiques, he embraced a faulty meme circling social media that accused the president of calling asylum seekers at the United States-Mexican border, &#8220;animals.&#8221; The video, from a year ago, showed Trump answering a question about the violent Mexican and Central American street gang, MS-13, and was cut for maximum impact.
O&#8217;Rourke also compared Trump&#8217;s administration to the Third Reich &#8212; Nazi Germany &#8212; a comparison he drew heat for from Holocaust preservation groups (and historians).
Beto still has a national donor list left over from his previous Senate campaign, and he says his operation is &#8220;maturing.&#8221; He even turned down an offer to accompany an Iowa student to prom.

Beto&#8230;Over? After A Stellar Start, O&#8217;Rourke Campaign Fumbles

Beto O'Rourke

Iowa is considering opening up voting to convicted felons who have completed their jail terms. But at a stop in Muscatine, Iowa on Saturday, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders took the policy one step further, demanding that felons be allowed to vote while serving their time in prison.
<a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/04/06/bernie-sanders-says-states-should-felon-voting-rights-election-2020-iowa-caucus/3388679002/">The Des Moines Register</a> reports that the Vermont independent, who is running as the most progressive candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, suggested that prisoners should be allowed to vote from behind bars &#8212; a step further than Iowa seems willing to go.
&#8220;I think that is absolutely the direction we should go,&#8221; Sanders told the audience at Muscatine&#8217;s West Middle School.
The Register reports that Sanders&#8217; home state of Vermont, and neighboring state, Maine, allow convicted felons to vote while they serve their prison sentences &#8212; the only two states in the country who recognize that right. Approximately 14 other states have done away with the idea that those who have committed serious and often violent crimes should be permanently barred from casting a ballot.
&#8220;In my state, what we do is separate. You&#8217;re paying a price, you committed a crime, you&#8217;re in jail. That&#8217;s bad,&#8221; Sanders told his audience. &#8220;But you&#8217;re still living in American society and you have a right to vote. I believe in that, yes, I do.&#8221;
In Iowa, the state may restore voting rights to convicted felons who have served their sentence on a case-by-case basis, but they&#8217;ve only begun to explore the possibility of restoring voting rights to felons across the board. A bill designed to do just that &#8212; expand voting rights to the formerly incarcerated &#8212; is now on hold in the Iowa legislature for a year after it was voted down.
Democrats have been pushing for felon voting rights for some time, and have had recent success in states like Florida, where voting rights were restored to the state&#8217;s convicted felon community just after the 2018 elections (that extension, though, is now in doubt after the Florida House passed a bill <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/felon-voting-rights-back-jeopardy-florida-n991146">requiring felons to pay back all court fees and fines</a> before gaining full access to their voting rights).
Republicans have fired back, insisting that while felons who have served their time have paid their debts to society, their obvious disregard for the law <a href="https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/there-are-good-reasons-felons-lose-the-right-vote">should keep them from participating in the democratic process</a> for the long term.
Sanders may not be championing prisoners&#8217; rights out of the goodness of his heart. Over the weekend, it became clear that Sanders has been trying to distance himself from the rest of the pack of Democratic contenders, often with far more extreme progressive policy positions than are shared even by the most progressive of his competitors.
On Saturday, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) joined former Obama administration official Julian Castro, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) and former Rep. John Delaney (D-MD) at a &#8220;presidential forum&#8221; in Storm Lake, Iowa, <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/04/06/bernie-sanders-says-states-should-felon-voting-rights-election-2020-iowa-caucus/3388679002/">according to the Des Moines Register,</a> but Sanders declined to participate, preferring to give his own speech at his own rally.
Warren and others were asked the same question as Sanders &#8212; whether they would support extending voting rights to felons &#8212; but even Warren, who is racing to be the most far left of the remaining candidates, demurred from suggesting that felons should be allowed to vote in prison.

Bernie Sanders: Felons Should Be Able To Vote From Behind Bars

On Wednesday, a case will be heard in federal court that has been brewing for over a year: a Christian student group at the University of Iowa filed suit in December 2017 against the university after the university deregistered the group because the group would not permit an openly gay student to serve as an officer in the group,
In February 2017, Marcus Miller, who is openly gay, filed a complaint with the university, alleging that Business Leaders in Christ (BLinC) would not let him serve in a leadership role because of his sexuality. The university asked BLinC to amend its constitution so that it would be less exclusive; BLinC refused.
In November 2017, university administrators <a href="https://www.thegazette.com/iowaideas/stories/higher-education/student-group-sues-university-of-iowa-over-allegations-it-rejected-a-gay-student-20171213?fbclid=IwAR1erT1F0I7PnjwFpaFwNBFwCNVKA6jhWd0Mc22oXS7EtUtUIPbw59MLvnk">deregistered</a> the student organization, but a <a href="https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/education/judge-sides-with-deregistered-faith-based-student-group-in-case-against-university-of-iowa-20180123">court order</a> nullified the deregistration until June 30, 2018. But 12 days before the June 30 deadline arrived, and only a few days after the U.S. Supreme Court voted for Christian baker Jack Phillips in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, UI attorneys asked a judge to <a href="https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/education/judge-sides-with-university-of-iowa-student-group-accused-of-discrimination-business-leaders-in-christ-blinc-20180717">reinstate its banishment</a> of the Christian group. The university somehow used the case, which Phillips won, to justify the banishment, saying the court &#8220;reaffirmed the principle that content neutral and generally applicable laws may infringe on certain First Amendment rights &#8230; In this case, the University of Iowa&#8217;s Human Rights Policy is content neutral and generally applicable to all registered student organizations.&#8221;
According to BLinC, Miller &#8220;expressly stated that he rejected BLinC&#8217;s religious beliefs and would not follow them.&#8221; Hannah Thompson, who was BLinC&#8217;s president at the time of the incident, said the decision was made regarding Miller &#8220;not because he was gay, but because he did not agree with BLinC&#8217;s biblically-based views on sexual conduct.&#8221;
BLinC&#8217;s statement of faith reads, &#8220;God&#8217;s intention for a sexual relationship is to be between a husband and a wife in the lifelong covenant of marriage. Every other sexual relationship beyond this is outside of God&#8217;s design and is not in keeping with God&#8217;s original plan for humanity.&#8221; The university claimed Business Leaders in Christ violated the school&#8217;s human rights <a href="https://opsmanual.uiowa.edu/community-policies/human-rights">policy</a>.
But then, in June 2018, a <a href="https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/education/judge-sides-with-university-of-iowa-student-group-accused-of-discrimination-business-leaders-in-christ-blinc-20180717">review</a> discovered 356 of 513 student organizations at the University don&#8217;t comply with the university&#8217;s human rights policy. As Megan Olson and Kyle Hooten <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11804">write at Campus Reform</a>, &#8220;Two of those organizations are specifically named in BLinC&#8217;s lawsuit. For example, lawsuit highlights the UI Feminist Union, which it says requires support for abortion practices. The document also names the Islamic organization Imam Mahdi, which it says <a href="https://www.thegazette.com/iowaideas/stories/higher-education/student-group-sues-university-of-iowa-over-allegations-it-rejected-a-gay-student-20171213?fbclid=IwAR1erT1F0I7PnjwFpaFwNBFwCNVKA6jhWd0Mc22oXS7EtUtUIPbw59MLvnk">requires</a> not only that members be a Shia Muslim but that they &#8216;refrain from major sins&#8230;and endeavor to avoid minor sins.&#8217; Homosexuality is a major sin in the Islamic faith.&#8221;
A <a href="https://www.becketlaw.org/media/court-next-week-christian-student-group-seeks-equal-treatment/">news release</a> from the law firm Becket, which is representing the students, stated:
<blockquote>
BLinC&#8217;s membership is open to all university students, but university officials targeted BLinC and <a href="https://www.becketlaw.org/media/university-iowa-tells-court-frats-god/">other religious groups</a> because they require leaders to live by and affirm the group&#8217;s religious beliefs. Meanwhile, the university allows several student groups &#8211; such as fraternities and sororities, sports clubs, feminist groups, pro-life groups, and advocacy groups &#8211; to enforce leader and membership restrictions. BLinC is asking the court for permanent protection from the university&#8217;s religious discrimination, especially after the university <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/becketnewsite/2018-11-05_UI-Memo-Opp-MSJ.pdf">admitted</a> that it knowingly targeted the religious student groups.
</blockquote>

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