Free Republic

Democrats have hit back at veteran GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley for calling President Barack Obama “stupid” in a weekend Twitter message. “Ive know @ChuckGrassley a long time. I am saddened he would embarrass himself like today with his comments about the President,” Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, tweeted. Meanwhile White House senior adviser David Axelrod said, “Heads up, Sen. Grassley. I think a 6-year-old hijacked your account and is sending out foolish Tweets just to embarrass you!” ABC News reported. But the senior senator from Iowa was unrepentant. “In his Tweet on Saturday, Sen. Grassley said that it doesn’t speak...

A jury late this afternoon awarded a state senator from Sioux City $231,000 in damages after finding his 2010 opponent and the Iowa Democratic Party committed libel and slander against him. Republican Senator Rick Bertrand of Sioux City objected to a 2010 TV ad which claimed Bertrand’s company had been singled out by the FDA for the “marketing of dangerous drugs to children.” “This is how you change the face of American politics, it’s by standing up to the political party machine,” Bertrand said this evening during a telephone interview with Radio Iowa. “This is how it works.” Bertrand, who...

Iowa Republicans are taking aim at the state's top law school for denying a faculty position to a conservative law professor, who an assistant dean once said embraces politics the rest of the faculty "despises." Teresa Wagner, who works as an associate director of writing at the University of Iowa College of Law, is suing former dean Carolyn Jones for employment discrimination, claiming she was not hired for a professor position because Jones and other law faculty disapproved of her conservative views and activism. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/05/iowa-republicans-blast-law-school-over-refusal-to-hire-conservative-professor/#ixzz1rMFNMn2q

A jury awarded Rick Bertrand $231,000 in damages late Friday after finding that his opponent and the Democratic Party committed libel and slander in a negative television ad in their 2010 race for an Iowa Senate seat. Bertrand, a Republican, in October 2010 filed a lawsuit in Woodbury County District Court against his Democratic opponent at the time, Rick Mullin, and the Iowa Democratic Party, claiming he was defamed by a campaign ad that claimed Bertrand "put profits ahead of children's' health." The Iowa Democratic Party paid for the ad, which was approved by Mullin. Jurors, who deliberated for more...

Iowa Republicans are taking aim at the state's top law school for denying a faculty position to a conservative law professor, who an assistant dean once said embraces politics the rest of the faculty "despises." Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/05/iowa-republicans-blast-law-school-over-refusal-to-hire-conservative-professor/#ixzz1rH2eeqcX

According to The Waukee Patch, Dallas County Sheriff Chad Leonard is going to be challenged for his seat in the June 5 Republican primary by Jim Romar. Sheriff Leonard is a friend of the gun rights community, having been a “shall issue” Sheriff before it was mandated statewide in 2011. Dallas County residents have spoken highly of Sheriff Leonard in regards to how he deals with holders and applicants of the Iowa Permit to Carry Weapons, and it is hard to find anyone who is dissatisfied with his overall stance on gun rights issues. Jim Romar is a retired veteran...

The politicization of higher education by activist professors and compliant university administrators deprives students of the opportunity to acquire knowledge and refine their minds. It also erodes the nation's civic cohesion and its ability to preserve the institutions that undergird democracy in America. So argues "A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California," a new report by the California Association of Scholars, a division of the National Association of Scholars (NAS). The report is addressed to the Regents of the University of California, which has ultimate responsibility for governing the UC system, but...

Picture this: You’re a senior in high school and you show up on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa for a college visit. You’re shown around campus by a male and a female in purple shirts that read SAA. Throughout the tour you learn that one is involved in Northern Iowa Student Government, UNI Freethinkers and Inquirers and Dance Marathon and runs track, and the other is involved in Greek Life, the Harry Potter Club and the Interpreters Theatre and is on the Dean’s List. After your tour, the number of things you can get involved in impresses...

Gannett newspaper. Link only.

Democrats racked up a sizable voter registration advantage in Iowa on January 3, 2008. (Democrats gained 60,000 new registrants that night.) It’s the night Iowa Democrats set a record in Caucus participation, the night Barack Obama won the Iowa Caucuses. Republicans have been gaining in party registration and the latest voter registration data shows there are a few thousand more registered Republican voters in Iowa (actual number is 611,990) than registered Democrats (actual number is 607,999). However, 678,704 Iowans have registered as “no party” voters (independents). Iowa’s new secretary of state sent a tweet about the registration numbers today. The...

The second half of Iowa's 84th General Assembly is beginning to wind down, and it appears that Iowa firearms owners are going to be left in the cold with nearly everything they had hoped to accomplish this year. A long list of bills was presented to the House of Representatives, but nearly all of them are going to die due to inaction. Many of the bills died before they even saw the light of day. Once introduced in the Iowa House of Representatives, firearms related bills go to the House Public Safety Committee. The Chairman of that Committee is Rep....

Hy-Vee Inc., after being pressured by Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, announced Wednesday that its stores would continue to offer ground beef containing a controversial ground beef additive. Producers call it "lean, finely textured beef," but it has become widely known as "pink slime." Hy-Vee's announcement, revealed during a Wednesday afternoon press conference in Des Moines with Branstad and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, marks a quick reversal of the Iowa-based chain's stance last week to join several other grocery chains and drop products containing the additive. "The governor called and expressed his concern," Ruth Comer, a Hy-Vee spokeswoman said in...

"Amazing what happens when you shine a light into a dark room ... you just don't know what you will find. It has been recently discovered that Iowa's Regents Universities have a "tuition set aside program." That means that they take a percent of the tuition from paying students and set it aside for scholarships. While the percents vary with each institution and program, at the University of Iowa, 1 in 4 (24%) [of the] dollars undergraduate students spend on their tuition (or repaying their student loans) goes to subsidizing tuition for other students. Shouldn't this be disclosed to the...

DES MOINES -- More than 200 people turned up on the west steps of the Statehouse on Monday night for a gathering that was part rally, part memorial and part testimonial. A majority of the crowd wore hooded sweatshirts in a show of solidarity with the late Trayvon Martin and the thousands of people who have taken up his cause across the country. "I am tired of injustice. I am tired of our babies dying," said Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, who wore a black hoodie as he told the crowd about his son being shot and killed in 1996....

Rush Limbaugh’s opponents are starting a radio campaign against him Thursday, seizing upon the radio star’s attack of a Georgetown law student as a “slut” to make a long-term effort aimed at weakening his business. The liberal Media Matters for America is using a past campaign against Glenn Beck as a template. In Limbaugh, however, they’re going after bigger game. He’s already fighting back and the group’s stance has provoked concerns that an effort to silence someone for objectionable talk is in itself objectionable. Media Matters is spending at least $100,000 for two advertisements that will run in eight cities....

As national debate intensifies over a “stand your ground” law in Florida that critics say enabled a neighborhood watch activist in February to shoot a black, unarmed teenager, Eastern Iowan authorities are hoping the controversy will put to rest a proposal to enact a similar self-defense law in Iowa. “A person already has the right to defend themselves or others, if needed,” said Linn County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden. “The ‘stand your ground’ legislation goes far past that. I refer to it as the ‘license to kill’ statute, because that’s exactly what it does.” The Iowa House on Feb. 29...

NEW YORK (AP) — Rush Limbaugh's opponents are starting a radio campaign against him Thursday, seizing upon the radio star's attack of a Georgetown law student as a "slut" to make a long-term effort aimed at weakening his business. The liberal Media Matters for America is using a past campaign against Glenn Beck as a template. In Limbaugh, however, they're going after bigger game. He's already fighting back and the group's stance has provoked concerns that an effort to silence someone for objectionable talk is in itself objectionable. Media Matters is spending at least $100,000 for two advertisements that will...

LONG BEACH — For the past 37 years, Oral Alfred Stuart Jr. was classified as AWOL and a Marine Corps deserter. But his family never believed it. Even if Stuart had left his beloved Corps, which he voluntarily joined in 1974 and proudly tattooed on his arm, he never would have left his parents without so much as a goodbye. "I always believed something must have happened to him. He loved the Marine Corps ... (and) he would have been in touch with our mother," insisted Carl Stuart, Stuart's older brother and one of only a few surviving family members....

MUSCATINE, Iowa, March 14 (UPI) -- An Iowa Republican running for Congress said he arrived early for an event and accidentally ended up addressing a group of Democrats. Dan Dolan of Muscatine said he and a staffer arrived early Saturday for the Republican convention at the Monroe County Courthouse in Albia, The Quad City Times reported Wednesday. "My staffer runs up and says, 'Hey, Dan Dolan is here. Can he speak?' So they stopped everything, and I get up there and give my speech," Dolan said. "I get done, a guy raises his hand and says, 'I think you want...

Democrat operative Zach Edwards changed his initial not guilty plea to guilty and received a light sentence for stealing Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s identity. The plea was officially filed by Iowa Courts on Thursday. He pled guilty to identity theft, a simple misdemeanor.Edwards received a deferred sentence of one year probation, 20 hours of community service within 120 days and a $65 fine. If he completes probation successfully, the simple misdemeanor charge is dismissed without a conviction being entered on his record. Edwards was originally charged with an aggravated misdemeanor and faced a maximum of two years in prison...