UnkTheUnk

joined 3 years ago
MODERATOR OF
[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

there are also a number of other protests happening this same day in Dubuque, Ames, Waterloo, and Sioux City

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

first time I've ever heard of a law enforcement officer say they wont do something because of the 4th amendment. IMO all law enforcement is duty bound to prevent unconstitutional actions by other law enforcement, but that's not practical for a wide variety of reasons

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

not even that, it's just the sheriff's office saying it wont help break the law

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

that really, truly sucks

honestly, if you sincerely believe that your physical safety is at risk if the people in your area knew your politics you need to GTFO, posthaste. If that's not an option for whatever reason, learn who's least likely to be hostile to your politics, the groups are probably going to be anemic but I know for a fact there's at least statewide Democratic Party organization. Not even necessarily repping for Democrats in particular there are probably other groups. In any case my point is that you may be alone, but you're less alone than you think you are

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

and that posting can concern things more locally relevant than yet another "geNrAL StRIke". I'm on this particular forum in large part because of the hope it can be locally relevant

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I guarantee you there are local politicians in your area who absolutely suck shit, who have established enemies, who aren't as secure in their positions as they think they are

go learn who they are and make their lives hell.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (7 children)

how about you stop posting about it with a PNG on a forum that gets like 20k visitors a month (high end) and go talk to your neighbors and coworkers about doing something more directly local?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

important context. For that the real question becomes how to shift the broader narrative so low-info voters stop trying consistently swinging for reactionary candidates

my preferred solution is to distance from national democrats (not a euphemism for moving right). local politicians start naming enemies and using any level of populism instead of just the always-mumbled "yea I want things to be good" or the over-refined "messaging(tm)" that everyone can smell is fake.

 

For context, this is because Adam Gregg decided to resign from being Lieutenant governor to become the CEO of the IA bankers association.

An interesting tidbit on Gregg's wikipedia page is that Gregg clerked for Justice Mark Cady of the IA supreme court. Mark Cady, who died in 2019 was the author Varnum v. Brien (legalizing gay marriage in the state) and Planned Parenthood v. Reynolds which struck down the 72 abortion waiting period law passed in 2017.

I want to speculate about the intra-GOP politics at the Capitol, but honestly don't have enough to go on beyond that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

There's also an important conversation to be had as to if talking about the specific effects is the best strategy, I'll be doing it anyway. but we still shouldn't loose track of how this is all flagrantly unconstitutional and a naked attempt to turn the federal government into a monarchy.

12
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

edit: Seems to be stopped for now, the white house has recinded the memo, we'll see what the fallout is from here.

The memo itself

Congressional Democrats response

#Iowa GOP response

Reynolds: worse than nothing

Nunn: nothing

Hinson: nothing

Miller-meeks: nothing

Feenstra: nothing

Grassley: hasn't made a statement, but he seems to be focusing more on the inspector general firings

Ernst: nothing, most recent statement is about cutting SNAP benefits that came out after the grant and loan freeze

I'm not an expert in federal grant programs in Iowa, obviously it's bad, but it's hard to do something about it without a more comprehensive accounting of what exactly it does to us. I will be updating this post sorting by policy area as I find things, please feel free to share what you find.

#Food security

Governor Reynolds has refused to accept federal summer EBT for multiple years now but this did not directly affect food security within the school year. Iowa had 29 million meals provided through the federal free and reduced lunch program in Iowa in the 22-23 school year that's in jeopardy.

SNAP itself might be more of a grey area since the memo says it doesn't apply to direct individual benefits (I don't fully believe that personally). 259k recipients in Iowa in 2024

#Healthcare

supposedly mediciad isn't going to be affected. one should hope so because there's 1.5million visits paid for by medicaid in Iowa a year

#Education

13.6% of Iowa school funding came from federal sources in 2021-22

#Disaster preparedness

tba

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I dont understand where you found that in what I said

 

The cope I'm huffing here is that Trump is too petty to nominate DeSantis, and that Ernst is popular enough with other GOP senators that she get's the pick over Hagerty.

I think she's quietly one of the least bad GOP senators. She's was fairly vocal in support of police reform in 2020, she's big on reducing sexual assault in the military. Honestly I would have been happy if Ernst was the republican Harris promised to have in her cabinet. (all of the things that would be bad about a conservative SecDef are bipartisan anyway)

Also there's the matter of needing a replacement for Ernst, which would be a lot easier to flip the senate seat she wasn't the one holding it.

1
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

What news sources for Iowa do you keep up with? reasons you don't follow certain news sources?

Especially smaller or less widely known sources.

 

user listed as the mod @[email protected] was last active 8 months ago.

This ain't exactly the most active community on here and there's yet to be any vitriol on here that'd need moderating but it's at least something to be aware of.

edit: I humbly accept my new status as the regent of the mighty @[email protected], my reign of terror will be legendary and act as a warning to all those who would dare question

 

First thing: Many parts of the school system are done by regional Area Education agencies (AEAs), things like special education, curriculum, media, etc. (heres the link to their website if you want to learn more iowaaea.org). Their boards are elected by school districts.

A version of the changes proposed by Governor Reynolds has already passed the Iowa house (hf2612). The part of the bill I'm focusing on here is how it allows for school districts to use state and federal $ that goes to AEAs and use it for themselves.

The thing that got me to start writing this post was a section of the most recent Iowa press. Todd Abrahamson, superintendent of the Okoboji Community School District and one of the few school superintendents in the state in favor of the proposed changes, when asked about what Okoboji would do with the money said (in more diplomatic language, 8:50) that Okoboji would poach staff from the AEAs to work exclusively for Okoboji and not for other districts.

Okoboji is a relatively wealthy tourism town, and is covered by the Prarie Lakes Area Education Agency in Northwest Iowa. Okoboji is an island of wealth in an otherwise especially rural and economically depressed area of the state where school districts just don't have resources to offer many kinds of resources on their own.

There's other things in the bill as well, shifting parts of curriculum more into the private sector. Also it would put the AEAs under the direct control of the state government.

view more: next ›