Iowa primary precinct caucus and caucuses news">
Iowa primary precinct caucus and caucuses news, reports
and information on 2004 Democrat and Republican candidates, campaigns
and issues
IOWA
DAILY REPORT Holding
the Democrats accountable today, tomorrow...forever.
PAGE 2
Friday,
Aug. 29, 2003
… Hillary’s
Decision? Columnist says she’ll gather Bill
and advisers after Labor Day to decide whether
to become a wannabe. Excerpt from item in
yesterday’s CQ Midday Update: “In his
syndicated column in the Hartford Courant
yesterday, Richard Reeves wrote that Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton and her advisers,
including her husband the ex-president, her
money men and pollsters, will meet shortly
after Labor Day to discuss whether she should
join the race for the Democratic presidential
nomination. Previously, Reeves wrote, she
could comfortably deny having presidential
ambitions because the conventional wisdom was
that it didn't really matter who the
Democratic candidate would be because
President Bush had a lock on re-election.
But with Bush looking more vulnerable, Clinton
has to check some numbers. If a Democrat
defeats Bush next November and runs for
re-election in 2008, then her next chance to
run would probably be in 2012, when she will
be 65 years old. It is a decision that has to
be made earlier rather than later because of
November and December filing deadlines for
early primary elections.”
… Iowa and
four other states targeted by Children’s
Defense Fund in Head Start battle.
Headline from Wednesday’s Quad-City Times: “Children’s
fun fights local control of Head Start”
Excerpt of report by the Times’ Ed Tibbetts:
“The Children’s Defense Fund is targeting Iowa
and four other states with a television
advertisement aimed at derailing a plan to
give states a bigger role in Head Start.
The 38-year-old program is being reauthorized
this year, and Republicans have proposed a
pilot project to give certain states
administrative control of the program.
Democrats have bitterly fought the plan,
claiming it is the federal government’s first
step toward dismantling the program, which
provides pre-school services for a million
poor and disabled children. The ad, which
will also run in Ohio, Tennessee, Delaware and
Pennsylvania, is slated to run through Labor
Day. The organization is airing the ad
through its action council, and is spending
$100,000 on the campaign. The ad, which
will air in Des Moines, accuses the
Bush administration of trying to ‘block grant
and dismantle’ Head Start and urges people to
call Congress and oppose it. The House
approved the bill last month by a single vote.
Senate has yet to act. Iowa was included as
one of the targeted states because of its
leadoff presidential caucuses next year.
Backers of the plan say children in Head Start
begin kindergarten behind other children, and
that better coordination between local
programs and states is essential to closing
that gap. Windy Hill, associate commissioner
of the Head Start Bureau, made that point in a
statement the Department of Health and Human
Services released Tuesday in response to the
ad. The proposal does not call for
‘dismantling or block granting’ Head Start,
the statement said.”
… “For some
of his simple-minded supporters, this makes
sense. They see the issue as a crusade and
herald Moore as a champion for religious
rights.” – sentence from Daily Iowan
(University of Iowa) editorial below on the
Alabama Ten Commandments dispute. The
headline: “A publicity stunt in Alabama”
Editorial excerpt: “Before Alabama Chief
Justice Roy Moore was elected to the highest
judgeship in the state, he hung a rosewood
plaque of the Ten Commandments above his
bench, saying he was just ‘looking for
decoration.’ Moore was suspended from the
bench last week for defying an order from a
state judicial review panel to remove a
5,200-pound Ten Commandments monument he had
placed in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial
Building. Moore was looking for more than
decoration when he ordered the stone monument.
What Moore was looking for, and got, was a
national spotlight under which to be a martyr.
The justice has managed to make the debate
seem like one of religion -- he's for God,
therefore everyone against him must be against
God. For some of his simple-minded supporters,
this makes sense. They see the issue as a
crusade and herald Moore as a champion for
religious rights. People pray and hold vigils
for the monument without seeing the larger
issue isn't religious freedom or separation of
church and state. Moore's supporters say the
monument does not infringe on peoples'
religious rights, nor does the monument
establish a government religion. In other
words, it does not go against the First
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Even
supposing they're right, however, that isn't
the heart of the debate. Moore should look
at his job description. As chief justice of
the Alabama Supreme Court, he must uphold the
law. Judges are routinely forced to adjudicate
interpretations of the law with which they
disagree. If judges cannot do so, they resign.
The eight other justices on the Alabama court
disagreed with Moore. He was simply outvoted,
leaving him with a simple choice: comply or
step down. If Moore is looking for his cause
to be seen as civil disobedience, his thinking
is ridiculous. He is not fighting for an
oppressed group. He stands in a position of
authority as a judge and in a position of the
majority as a Christian. No one is
infringing on his rights, and the monument
stands on property he does not own. However,
if Moore is still looking for decorations for
the judicial building, a monument of the
Constitution would serve well. The Ten
Commandments would be a lovely contribution to
his church. Placing them vice versa wouldn't
make sense. Moore was looking for attention
and got it, but after this episode, he will be
looking for another job after destroying his
legal career in a fast-burning flash of
evangelical fervor.” This morning’s headlines:
Des Moines
Register, top front-page headlines: Iowa – “Motorcyclist
dies in shooting near Coralville school…’The
kids were scared and confused out there’…All
students, teachers safe after deadly police
chase” & “Chaos, hysteria pepper 9/11
records”
Main online
headlines, Quad-City Times: “Sept. 11
report details phone calls from WTC” & “Abortion
foes see killer as martyr”
Nation/world
heads, Omaha World-Herald online: “Callers
in Trade Center were told to stay put” & “Power
outage brings London trains to halt”
Featured
online reports, New York Times: “General in
Iraq Says More G. I.’s Are Not Needed” & “Fresh
Glimpse in 9/11 Files of the Struggles for
Survival” & “North Korea Says It May
Test an A-Bomb”
Sioux City
Journal online, top stories: “North Korea
says U. S. ‘hostile’ position endangers chance
of more nuclear talks” & “Corps to
release water from Kansas reservoirs into
Missouri River” Report says the U. S. Army
Corps of Engineers has decided to use water
from drought-stricken Kansas reservoirs to
support barge traffic on the Missouri River.
Chicago
Tribune, main online reports: “WTC
transcripts may be thorn in economy’s side”
& “N. Korea mixes message”
Iowa Briefs/Updates:
KCCI-TV (Des
Moines) reported that the Meskwaki casino
near Tama will remain closed – and
could be shutdown for the foreseeable future –
after a federal appeals court upheld a
lower court decision. The ruling is the
latest setback in the six-month tribal
leadership dispute – that resulted in the
casino’s closing just before Memorial Day. A
three-judge panel of the 8th U. S.
Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower
court decision that the tribe’s due process
rights were not violated
Farewell to
two prominent IA politicians:
Several news outlets reported yesterday that
former GOP Congressman Bill Scherle, a
diehard conservative from Henderson who
represented southwest Iowa, died Wednesday in
Council Bluffs. Scherle, who served
eight years in Congress before being defeated
by Harkin in ’74, was 80. The Des Moines
Register reported that a former Dem state
legislator from Burlington – William
Monroe Jr. -- died of a stroke. Monroe,
who served in the Iowa House during the 1970s
and had lived in Urbandale for the past
several years, was 65.
Grassley –
upset by rural health care situation – orders
staff to stop negotiating on prescription drug
bill.
Headline from
Wednesday’s Quad-City Times: “Grassley
halts drug-bill talks” Excerpt from
coverage by the Times’ Ed Tibbetts: “U.S.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has ordered his
staff to stop negotiating the details of a
prescription drug bill with their counterparts
in the House. A disagreement over how to
handle a provision to spend billions for rural
health care — something Iowa doctors and
hospitals have heavily lobbied for — is at the
root of the problem. Grassley’s office
says House Ways and Means Chairman Bill
Thomas, a California Republican, promised him
that the $25 billion provision would be
handled by their respective staff members over
the August recess. But, in an interview on
Tuesday, Grassley said that when they were
to meet last Friday, the rural health-care
package was left out. ‘If the chair is
going to dictate what is going to be
negotiated, that’s not negotiating in good
faith,’ he said. Grassley and Thomas have
been at odds before, and this latest flare-up
is bound to increase tensions. The House
and Senate both passed bills establishing
prescription drug benefits for seniors before
the August recess, with both including
separate rural health-care provisions. A
conference committee is expected to reconcile
the bills. Grassley said the rural piece,
which constitutes a relatively small part of
the overall, 10-year cost of the $400 billion
bill, should be considered non-controversial
and handled by their respective staffs. He
said if it is put off, there is a greater
opportunity for the issue to get balled up in
negotiations over the more contentious, more
expensive parts of the bill. Most of the
controversy has centered on the level of the
drug benefit and how it is to be delivered to
senior citizens. A spokesperson for the
Ways and Means Committee differed with
Grassley’s version of events on Tuesday.
Christin Tinsworth said an agenda went out
last week for a staff meeting that included
pieces of the rural health-care package.”
“Iowa’s
median average wage drops 17 cents” –
headline from yesterday’s Quad-City Times.
Report places Iowa sixth among nine Midwestern
states. Excerpt from report by the Todd
Dorman: “Iowans have more than earned Labor
Day off, according to a new report released
Wednesday that suggests the state’s workers
are laboring longer while wages decline.
‘There are thousands of Iowans working harder
and longer for a whole lot less money and they
deserve more support,’ said Peter Fisher, a
University of Iowa professor who co-authored
‘The State of Working Iowa’ report. The report
is issued every other year by the Iowa Public
Policy Project, a liberal think tank based in
Mount Vernon. It compiles economic data
from numerous federal and state sources.
According to the report, Iowa’s median hourly
wage dropped to $12.25 in 2002 from $12.42 in
2000. The state’s median wage ranks sixth
among nine Midwestern states, with Minnesota’s
$14.64 leading the pack. South Dakota is last
at $11.13. The bottom 20 percent of Iowa
wage-earners saw their average median pay slip
from $8.41 in 2000 to $8.26 in 2002. But
that is slightly ahead of the national median
average of $8.23. One-fifth of Iowa workers
earn wages below the federal poverty
threshold, which is $7.63 per hour for a
family of three. Iowa’s highest-wage workers,
those in the top 20 percent of earners,
received a small raise, from a median of
$19.55 per hour in 2000 to $19.62 in 2002.
But Iowa’s top 20 percent ranks seventh in the
Midwest, a group topped by Illinois at $23.92,
and trails the U.S. average of $22.52.
Fisher blames wage declines on the steady loss
of high-paying manufacturing jobs. Since 2000,
Iowa has lost 28,000 manufacturing jobs, he
said.”
Today’s editorial, Des Moines Register:
“Ask the
world to help…Other countries have a
stake, too, in stabilizing Iraq…Those
countries that cautioned against the war may
be reluctant to send their soldiers to die in
the place of Americans.”
Thursday’s editorials, Des Moines
Register:
“Tiny
schools look bad – again…Iowa should
create regional high schools and improve
educational equity.” Excerpt: “Iowans taking
the SAT tended to score a lot lower if they
were from the smallest schools than if they
were from schools with larger enrollments.” &
“Oh, it’s only your kids’ money…America
is piling on the debt at precisely the wrong
time… And no one expects Congress to change
its habits.” Football
fever hits Iowa this weekend.
Iowa Hawkeyes
open season tomorrow morning (11:02 a.m.) vs.
Miami of Ohio in Iowa City. Game
televised on ESPN2. Tomorrow evening (6 p.m.),
two Iowa schools – Iowa State and Northern
Iowa – meet at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames.
No television…On the Iowa college scene, two
Iowa schools rank in the NAIA preseason
football poll – St. Ambrose of Davenport
was rated as 13th and Northwestern
of Orange City 23rd.
DSM 7 a. m.
69, cloudy. Temperatures at 7 a.m. ranged from
54 in Estherville and 55 at six
reporting locations – including Storm Lake,
Clarion and Charles City – to 72 in
Fairfield, Fort Madison and
Muscatine. Today’s high 81, mostly sunny.
Tonight’s low 56, mostly clear. Saturday’s
high 74, mostly sunny. Saturday night’s low
52, mostly clear. Sunday’s high 75, partly
cloudy.
New record
price may be ready for an Iowa-bred horse.
Excerpt from report in yesterday’s Des Moines
Register by Don Johnson: “Lovethatlegend is
poised to net a record sale price for an
Iowa-bred horse. Owners Richard and Vickie
Cosaert of Logan, Ia., have agreed to
sell the 2-year-old filly for $365,000 to
bloodstock agent Mark Reid and New York
trainer Bobby Frankel, who in turn will turn
the filly over to one of their high-profile
owners. The sale is contingent upon
Lovethatlegend passing an exam by Reid and a
veterinarian after she races in Saturday's
Iowa Sorority. The Cosaerts, who moved
their horse farm from Nebraska to Iowa after
Ak-sar-ben in Omaha closed, said they were
torn whether to sell…The filly will run her
last race for the Cosaerts in Saturday's
$65,000 Iowa Sorority on Iowa Classic Night.
That carries a risk because if the filly is
injured, the sale is off. ‘There's a little
bit of risk, but my wife and I talked about it
and this is our Kentucky Derby to us,’ Cosaert
said, ‘We feel strongly that we want her to
run in this race. We bred the filly to run in
Iowa.’”
back to page 1
click here
Paid
for by the Iowa Presidential Watch PAC
P.O.
Box 171, Webster City, IA 50595
privacy
/ agreement
/
/ homepage
/
search engine
to read past Iowa Daily Reports
THE CLINTON COMEDIES: 