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Is Barack Obama electable? Further evidence of the erosion of President Obama’s electability comes from Iowa as the liberal Des Moines Register’s latest poll shows the president is behind 3 of the 4 remaining Republican presidential candidates by 2 to 7 points — in a state he won by 10 points in 2008. The numbers: Ron Paul 49% Barack Obama 42% Rick Santorum 48% Barack Obama 44% Mitt Romney 46% Barack Obama 44% The increasingly irrelevant Newt Gingrich is down 51%-37% to the president. Iowa is one of 11 states that are considered “toss-up” by Real Clear Politics.

Gannett Rag - Link Only http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120218/NEWS09/120218015/Obama-trails-three-four-Republican-candidates-latest-Iowa-Pol

Des Moines Register articles may only be linked: Denied jobs, blacks in Iowa test new bias legal theory

She was dead. The woman lay on her back in the middle of the street. Her eyes were open and staring up at the sky, clouds reflecting on the haze forming over them. Pools of thick, dark syrup formed under her back, her life blood oozing out across the black asphalt around her body. I was there when she died. It's a hell of a thing, death. Anyone who has been around it knows about that moment when someone goes from being a person to a thing. It's a curiosity, almost magical in a way. You can't help but be...

[snip] Air Force Secretary Michael Donley met Tuesday with Michigan Reps. Candice Miller and Tim Walberg, who concerned about losing the A-10 mission at Selfridge Air National Guard Base. “Secretary Donley indicated that the Obama Administration is not open to making any alterations to their proposed cuts and all of the cuts outlined last week will be included in the budget the President plans to send to Congress next week,” the two Republicans said in a joint statement. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, left a Thursday meeting with Donley still frustrated with the Pentagon’s plans for the Iowa National Guard’s 132nd...

HJR 2005 and HF 2114 were debated in the House Public Safety Committee (PSC) today. Unfortunately for gun owners in Iowa, the true intent of both of these pieces of legislation was evidently lost on the Chairman of the committee. Representative Clel Baudler sided with the Democrat members of the committee, and both bills were watered down to the point of being useless. HJR 2005 was intended to add the right to keep and bear arms to the Iowa Constitution. Taking into account all of the challenges that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has faced over the years,...

DES MOINES — Matt Windschitl turned a half-swivel in his chair and stuck his right hand out, palm up, stopping National Rifle Association lobbyist Chris Rager from walking out the door. Windschitl, 28, a member of the House Republican leadership team from Missouri Valley, had just watched his “stand your ground” bill sail through a legislative committee. “This,” Windschitl said as Rager shook his hand, “is just the start.” The bill would allow Iowans to respond with deadly force if they feel threatened and would protect them from liability in some cases. This session Windschitl also has proposed legislation that...

AJ Spiker won a narrow election Saturday morning to become the new chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa. Spiker eked by interim chairman Bill Schickel by a 9-8 vote on the second ballot. Spiker is a realtor from Ames, the former chairman of the Story County GOP, and represented Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District on the State Central Committee. He served as one of the co-chairs for Ron Paul’s presidential campaign in Iowa. Spiker replaces former chairman Matt Strawn, who resigned in the middle of his second term. Strawn’s last official day on the job was Friday. “It feels great....

State Republicans want to bring Iowa's Constitution in line with those of 44 other states. Iowa is one of only six states in the Union that do not have a Second Amendment-like right to keep and bear arms enshrined in their Constitutions. Gun-rights advocates — such as Stephanie Samford of the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action — say the resolution, House Joint Resolution 2005, is necessary to protect Iowans' right to have firearms. "We have to move beyond the idea of only having a handgun in the home for self-defence," Samford said. Advocates for the resolution have cited...

Gannett paper, link only: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120210/NEWS02/302100055/Kids-kept-53-laptops-Des-Moines-charter-school-tells-police

Newly released FBI memos detail a sensitive investigation into fundraising in the Carter White House that started with a comparison to Watergate but fizzled after uncovering special access for donors but no criminal wrongdoing. The memos were released from the file of Charles Manatt, an Iowa native and former Democratic National Committee Chairman who was interviewed during the investigation. The records became public after Manatt died in July at age 75 in Richmond, Va. Manatt grew up on an Audobon farm and studied rural sociology at Iowa State University before ascending to the top of the fields of law, business...

Twenty-One Republican Candidates Take Steps Toward ‘Young Gun' Status Washington- The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) today announced its newest round of ‘On the Radar' candidates. By reaching the second step of the four-step ‘Young Guns' program, these Republican candidates have reached the fundamental benchmarks to place them on the road to victory. Now, these 21 candidates are ready to take on the Democrat establishment and return fiscal sanity to Washington. "These candidates have worked hard to meet the benchmarks that have been laid out before them and are determined to hold Washington Democrats accountable this November," said NRCC Chairman...

IOWA – -(Ammoland.com)- Contact Public Safety Committee members today and urge them to vote YES tomorrow on HF 2114, the Iowa Firearm Preemption Act. Ask these members to vote YES and support current state law in Iowa code 724.7 and 724.28 that explicitly state that permit holders should be allowed to carry anywhere except where state and federal law allow. Punishing law-abiding citizens that are fully screened and have had extensive background checks by disallowing them access to public buildings is dishonoring to Iowans. It also puts honest, law-abiding citizens at risk of inadvertently violating these unnecessary, illegal laws that...

Iowa lawmakers are considering several bills aimed at enhancing gun rights, but critics say some of the measures are “pro-criminal” and will lead to more violence. According to the Des Moines Register, multiple bills have been introduced this year, ranging from one that would amend the state constitution to effectively eliminate all gun regulations to another that would “permit a shoot-to-kill response by anyone who believes he’s being threatened with death or serious injury by another person.” The Register reported Wednesday that advocates for changes to the state’s current gun laws believe most of the bills are necessary to protect...

SOMERS, WI (WISN/CNN) – It is said that "no good deeds goes unpunished," and that seems to be true for a 75-year-old Wisconsin man who fought of carjackers in his driveway after doing them a favor. Army veteran Alex Weber's kindness nearly cost him his car after he said a man and a woman asked for his help. "A woman got out of the car and said, ‘Hey we're out of gas,' and I said OK, I don't have any here but I'll get you some," Weber said. Weber said he took the man and woman for a ride to...

DES MOINES — The leader of the Senate Republicans is pushing to reinstate a limited death penalty in Iowa for any adult who kills a minor in the commission of a rape or kidnapping. But Democrats say it’s a political ploy to interject a distracting social issue during a session focused on job creation and reforming the state’s property tax, education and mental-health systems. Senate GOP Leader Jerry Behn of Boone introduced the death-penalty measure this session as he has done in previous years. He says it is a way to deter perpetrators of Class A felonies in Iowa from...

Two American brothers of a Mexican casino magnate who fled drug and fraud charges in the United States and has been seeking a pardon enabling him to return have emerged as major fund-raisers and donors for President Obama’s re-election campaign. The casino owner, Juan Jose Rojas Cardona, known as Pepe, jumped bail in Iowa in 1994 and disappeared, and has since been linked to violence and corruption in Mexico. A State Department cable in 2009 said he was suspected of orchestrating the assassination of a business rival and making illegal campaign donations to Mexican officials... one of Mr. Cardona’s brothers...

There is a lot of blame to go around over the mishandling of the Iowa Caucus results. However, a good chunk of the blame lies with the Lee County GOP central committee. There were eight precincts in the state, out of 1774, that failed to turn in the necessary paperwork to have their votes certified. Four of those precincts were in Lee County. The central committee met on Monday for the first time since the Iowa Caucus. Many in the crowd of 50 were eager to discuss the numerous failings. “We’re going to talk about the caucuses,” one central committee...

DES MOINES — Legislative Republicans proposed Thursday to spend $182 million less than Gov. Terry Branstad’s $6.242 billion budget plan for next fiscal year and about $119 million under majority Senate Democrats’ targets by providing less money to education, human services and economic incentives and requiring state employees and elected officials to pay $200 a month for their health insurance coverage. All three competing and contrasting fiscal 2013 budget approaches offered by the governor and leaders of the split-control Legislature would fully fund spending commitments already approved last session, including a 2 percent “allowable growth” increase for K-12 public schools...

HJR 2001, the legislation that reverses Iowa DNR's ban on lead ammunition during dove hunting season, passed in the Iowa House this morning on a 73-27 vote. The issue will now go to the Senate for debate. If it passes in the Senate, it is reported that Governor Branstad will sign the legislation into law. Also today, HJR 2005 was passed in a House Public Safety subcommittee meeting. HJR 2005 is legislation that would provide for an amendment to the Iowa Constitution that secures the right to keep and bear arms. The vote was 2-1, with Reps. Windschitl and Brandenburg...

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Does Iowa need a constitutional amendment to protect the right to bear arms? Iowa is one of six states with a constitution that does not provide gun rights to its citizens. There are laws in place that give Iowans the right to bear arms, but some lawmakers feel that's not enough. They're proposing to add an amendment to the Iowa Constitution. It states, “The right of an individual to acquire, keep, possess, transport, carry, transfer, and use arms to defend life and liberty and for all other legitimate purposes is fundamental and shall not be infringed...

Several new firearms related bills have been introduced in the Iowa House over the past several days. Here is a rundown of each of them: * HF 2113 – This bill would restore “Constitutional Carry” rights to Iowans. This bill is currently assigned to a Public Safety Subcommittee of Reps. Tjepkes, Baudler, and R. Olson. * HF 2114 – This bill would put and end to the patchwork of anti-carry ordinances, rules, and regulations that localities have adopted since Iowa went to a “Shall Issue” system of permit issuance on 1/1/11. This bill is currently assigned to a Public Safety...

The Florida primary overnight has produced the thumping victory for Mitt Romney that the polls were predicting. But what might be worrying GOP strategists is that turnout was down sharply compared to four years ago. Florida will be one of the critical battlegrounds in November and the last thing the party wants is for Republican-inclined voters to be less enthusiastic. The New York Times's election and polling analyst, Nate Silver, has done some number-crunching using the exit poll data from the four states that voted in January and finds that there is a pattern. In Iowa the number of self-identifying...

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) have introduced legislation that would permanently discontinue the $1 dollar note and replace it with a coin. Harkin and McCain penned The Currency Optimization, Innovation and National Savings (COINS) Act in response to reports from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) that indicate that abandoning the note could save around $5.5 billion over the next 30 years. Specifically the COINS Act would require that Federal Reserve Banks discontinue the $1 note four years after enactment or once circulation of $1 coins exceeds 600 million annually.

Proponents say elections will be more secure; opponents say certain individuals will be unfairly targeted. Secretary of State Matt Schultz jumped into one of the most partisan issues in electoral politics last week when he proposed a new voter photo identification bill. But he did so with a twist. Unique to his proposal is the idea that one voter can vouch for another in place of photo identification, something Schultz hopes will blunt criticism of his plan. Indeed, Schultz used the word “bipartisan” no fewer than 14 times during his Statehouse news conference and in answering questions from the media....

DES MOINES, Iowa -- A Des Moines man has been arrested after police say he used, or tried to use, the identity of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz in a scheme to falsely implicate Schultz in perceived unethical behavior in office. Zachary Edwards was arrested Friday and charged with identity theft. The Iowa Department of Public Safety issued a news release saying Schultz's office discovered the scheme on June 24, 2011 and notified authorities.

IOWA – -(Ammoland.com)- Progress at the Capitol!This has been a busy, busy couple of weeks for IFC, your Iowa NRA Affiliate Club! We have 3 issues to update you on, a new state added recognition of Iowa’s Permit to Carry, steady progress on the Traditional Ammunition Ban front and most importantly Stand Your Ground legislation is moving forward! Iowa Permit Now Recognized in Georgia IFC has been working with NRA, and also with Gary Slider at www.hangunlaw.us, to help get Georgia to recognize Iowa’s Permit to Carry. Thanks to all parties involved for their efforts. Georgia law was written such...

Lottery Calls Series Of Events 'Strangest Situation' In 26-Year History DES MOINES, Iowa -- A New York lawyer, acting as the trustee for what is called the Hexham Investment Trust, has indicated he will not pursue a claim for a $14 million lottery jackpot. Just after 6 p.m. Thursday, lawyers in Des Moines representing attorney Crawford Shaw said he is withdrawing his claim for the "Hot Lotto" ticket that was submitted to Iowa Lottery officials just hours before a Dec. 29, 2011 deadline. The ticket had been purchased at a Des Moines convenience store a year earlier. Lottery officials said...

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz plans to unveil a voter identification bill at Statehouse news conference. Schultz, a Republican, has scheduled an announcement Thursday morning on a voter ID bill. The issue was central to his successful 2010 campaign for secretary of state. Critics of voter ID laws say they unfairly discourage voting by poor, minority and older voters who are less likely to have government issued identification. They also argue that voter fraud is rare. Some say the effort is a ploy to discourage voting by groups that tend to support Democratic candidates. Schultz has noted people have...

When an employee of Link Strategies was arrested Friday for trying to steal the Iowa Secretary of State’s identity, it was not the first time the Democrat consultant group was investigated for criminal activity aimed at tearing down a Republican opponent. Back in 2002, while Link Strategies was running Tom Harkin’s senatorial campaign, the group was involved in an infamous “taping” scandal. The 2002 incident became one of the most talked about stories in Iowa politics that year. A Harkin campaign staffer arranged to have a supporter tape-record a private strategy session conducted by Harkin’s Republican opponent, Greg Ganske. The...

Rick Santorum said he would be pleased with a third-place finish in South Carolina Saturday but vowed to stay in the presidential race through the Florida primary no matter what. He also blasted his "desperate" rival Mitt Romney for perpetrating "cheap stuff" as Mr. Romney's position as front runner here melted away the past week... "We finally were given the victory in Iowa," Mr. Santorum said. "If we had had it two weeks ago, it might be a very different situation. It might have been a very different race." Mr. Santorum also said he was disappointed in Mr. Romney after...

Why did the Iowa Republican Party decide to announce a Santorum victory, only a day before the South Carolina Primary? http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-21/santorum-declared-iowa-caucuses-winner-by-state-party-leaders.html# It requires no more than 4 days after the announcement of the initial results, to conduct a fully certified recount, because relatively few people vote in the Iowa Caucuses. The reason why they announced Santorum as the winner of Iowa at this time, is to get some supporters of Gingrich to vote for Santorum, in order to split the conservative vote and assure a victory for Romney. American elections have become as corrupt as the elections in Mexico, Colombia,...

Barack Obama’s 2008 Iowa New Media Director was arrested Friday for attempting to use the identities of Secretary of State Matt Schultz, and/or his brother Thomas, with the intent to falsely implicate the Secretary Schultz in illegal or unethical behavior. Zach Edwards, 29, of Des Moines, currently works for Link Strategies, a Democrat-affiliated organization with ties to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. Edwards is the Director of New Media for Link Strategies. The Secretary of State’s office discovered the alleged crime and reported it to authorities. Edwards turned himself in to the Iowa DCI agents Friday afternoon. He was charged with...

GREENVILLE, S.C. — On the eve of the South Carolina primary, ­ Iowa Republicans dealt Mitt Romney’s campaign a blow by formally declaring Rick Santorum the winner of their Jan. 3 caucuses. At 18 minutes before midnight Friday, South Carolina time, the Republican Party of Iowa released a statement revising its Thursday announcement that reported Santorum ahead of Romney but also saying the two-week-old race had no clear winner. “In order to clarify conflicting reports and to affirm the results released January 18 by the Republican Party of Iowa, Chairman Matthew Strawn and the State Central Committee declared Senator Rick...

Allies of embattled GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich are coming to his defense against his ex-wife's new and salacious charges, labeling Marianne as "unstable" and "unhinged." What's more is that they are slapping at ABC, which is set to run an interview Thursday with Marianne Gingrich in which she claims the former speaker wanted an open marriage so he could date his current wife, Callista. Gingrich's supporters claim the network is trying to get the Republican out of the race just as he's peaking in the polls. What was once a quiet campaign to distance Marianne from Gingrich has kicked...

Mitt Romney made a "polite" phone call Thursday to rival Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum to "concede victory" in Iowa, according to Santorum's spokesman Hogan Gidley. But Romney's team objected, saying his campaign didn't concede. “He just called him. They talked, and he recognized his efforts," a top campaign aide told CNN. Santorum finished the Iowa Republican caucuses 34 votes ahead of Mitt Romney, but results from several precincts are missing and the full actual results may never be known, according to a final certified tally released Thursday by the Iowa GOP. The new numbers show 29,839 votes for Santorum...

Reacting to this morning’s news that not only has Rick Santorum won the Iowa Caucuses after all but that they’ve managed to lose more ballots than the margin of victory, the Telegraph’s Toby Harnden tweets, “What a debacle for Iowa. Hard to see why candidates should take Iowa caucuses seriously in future.” Indeed. This is truly a joke. In a contest with fewer total votes (121,503 counted; goodness knows how many lost) than your average election for a school board seat, the powers that be have managed to have wild shifts in the vote count in several districts and be...

Former Senator Rick Santorum won the January 3 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses by a razor-thin margin of 34 votes, according to certified results released on Thursday by the Iowa Republican Party. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney had been declared the winner on the night of the caucuses, but now falls to second place. Santorum received 29,839 votes, compared with 29,805 for Romney, according to the new figures.

The Iowa Republican Party will certify this month's presidential caucuses as a split decision between former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, citing missing data from eight precincts, the Des Moines Register reported on Thursday. The party had previously awarded the contest to Romney, with an eight vote margin. The official certified caucus results are due out Thursday at 8:15 a.m. local time (1415 GMT). The Register said the new count put Santorum ahead by 34 votes. However, results from any one of the eight precincts with "missing data" could hold an advantage for Romney, the...

LINCOLN — Californian Therese Ebert dreamed of being a modern-day homesteader, pulling up stakes from her rented room in Poway, Calif., to build a home of her own in Beatrice, Neb. Chasing the promise of free land, she packed her two dogs and her belongings into the back of an SUV and set off for Nebraska. She had signed up last January for a free lot in Beatrice on condition that she build a home on the property within five years. "Everything I owned was with me," Ebert said. "The car was packed, I wasn't looking back." But, alas, homesteading...

Oh my. MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — It’s conventional wisdom in Republican circles here in South Carolina that if Mitt Romney wins the state’s primary this Saturday — having already won in Iowa and New Hampshire — he’ll be the GOP presidential nominee. “If for some reason he’s not derailed here and Mitt Romney wins South Carolina — no one’s ever won all three — I think it should be over,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday. “That would be quite a testament to his ability as a candidate and a campaigner.” But what if Romney did not actually win Iowa? That...

If for nothing else, Jodi Kantor’s The Obamas will be remembered for an anecdote from 2010. After he spent hours disputing an allegation in the French media that Michelle Obama thought life in the White House was “hell,” press secretary Robert Gibbs encountered senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. She told him the first lady was unhappy with his work. Gibbs exploded in a rage, informing Jarrett that she didn’t “know what the f— you’re talking about” and that if Mrs. Obama was displeased, well, “f— her too.” Subsequent relations between the senior adviser and press secretary were strained. Gibbs told Kantor...

Despite a better than 1,000 percent increase in the number of gun permits issued in Dubuque County in 2011, officials who fought the new law are somewhat surprised at the lack of problems caused by it. More than 2,000 county residents received permits to carry in 2011, a 1,170 percent increase from the previous year. Such an increase was certainly expected; Dubuque County Sheriff Don Vrotsos actually predicted more would apply. And while gun-control groups didn't quite predict the end of the world as we know it, the predictions came close -- thousands of people flashing handguns; fist fights dissolving...

What was Tom Emmer thinking when he applied for a faculty position at Hamline University? Surely he knows that our campus intelligentsia generally view conservatives like him as knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. At many campuses, Emmer might have made it to the second round of interviews if he had been a disabled "person of color" or confused about his sexuality. But even then he probably couldn't have overcome the cardinal rule of campus "diversity" -- diversity of political views will not be tolerated. Given his rejection by Hamline (after he thought he had a job), Emmer might be pleased to know that...

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- Council Bluffs police said a blade-wielding, would-be robber picked the wrong drugstore to hold up. He ended up getting a fist in the face from the pharmacist. Pharmacist Bill Shipley encountered a man wearing a black stocking over his head on Wednesday morning. "At first, I thought it was the delivery man delivering our medications that we get every morning," said Shipley. Shipley, who works at Union Pharmacy, said the man told him he had a gun and demanded hydromorphone. "It's a pain medication," said Shipley. "If you abuse it, you can get high similar to...

owa is one of six states that doesn’t have an amendment in their state Constitutions covering for the right to bear arms. Council Bluffs lawmaker Mark Brandenburg wants to change that. Brandenburg, a Republican who represents District 100 in the Iowa House, is co-sponsoring legislation for an Iowa version of the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Like all amendments to the Iowa Constitution, it would require passage by two consecutive general assemblies of the Legislature and then a vote by the people. “We’re just starting this in the House,” Brandenburg said. “I’m hopeful of its passage, but it’s still...

Following much thoughtful consternation, I have decided to pull my support and endorsement of Texas Governor Rick Perry for the GOP presidential nomination.  I realize the redstate diary commenters, won’t be kind but this needs to be said.  This decision wasn’t easy but a serious evaluation of the field should inform us that Rick Perry has no realistic path to victory in South Carolina, Florida and beyond. I realize that redstate.com’s Erick Erickson continues to stick by him, that South Carolina is Perry’s state and that he has re-tooled his staff.  But it is too little too late and at...

On Tuesday, Mitt Romney beat Rick Santorum by eight votes in the Iowa caucus (maybe). Nervous Romney supporters, who had seen him down by over a hundred votes at different points in the night, were thrilled. Establishment Republicans were thrilled. And media personalities who’ve hoped Obama can get lucky enough to face Romney, instead of real conservative, were likewise thrilled. But Romney’s camp might want to take a hard and sober look at the cloud that accompanies this silver lining: namely, that Romney has been running for president for 5 years now yet 75% of Iowans still wanted no part...

UPDATED: Mitt Romney got 20 fewer votes in Moulton precinct, Appanoose County GOP chairman says!!!!!