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1 month ago | 
bleedingheartland.com | Kurt Meyer |Laura Belin |Matt Russell |Sue Dinsdale
"Any fool can destroy trees." Is Uncle Sam a fool? Monday, Mar 17 2025 0 Comments Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register and the Substack newsletter Showing Up, where this essay first appeared. He served as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.
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Jan 7, 2025 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Laura Belin |Randy Evans |Jason Benell |Kurt Meyer
One of President-elect Donald Trump’s top advisers on judicial and legal matters stepped away from a University of Iowa alumni advisory board late last year. Mike Davis has long been an aggressive Trump ally, known for his “combative presence on right-wing media.” Some of his incendiary posts on the X/Twitter platform prompted calls in November for the university to remove him from the political science department’s alumni advisory board.
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Jan 6, 2025 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Laura Belin |Randy Evans |Jason Benell |Kurt Meyer
Katie Whittington, Mike Zimmer to face off in Iowa Senate district 35 Monday, Jan 6 2025 0 Comments Both major parties have selected their nominees for the January 28 special election to in Iowa Senate district 35. Central DeWitt school board president Mike Zimmer was unopposed at the Democratic Party’s special nominating convention on December 30. Clinton County activist Katie Whittington prevailed in a three-way competition at the GOP special convention on January 4.
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Jan 5, 2025 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Kurt Meyer
Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register and the Substack newsletter Showing Up, where this essay first appeared. He served as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization. There once was a time, now no longer true for Democrats, when if Iowans wanted to see, meet, probably visit with a candidate seeking to become president of the United States, you could.
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Dec 9, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Laura Belin |Jason Benell |Randy Evans |Kurt Meyer
MAGA activists are increasingly unhappy with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst and looking for someone to run against her in Iowa’s 2026 Senate primary. If conservatives aren’t able to stop Ernst from winning the nomination, they may have a place to park their protest votes in the general election. Libertarian Thomas Laehn again confirmed to Bleeding Heartland he’s seriously considering a Senate bid. Activists on Iowa GOP’s MAGA wing have long grumbled about Ernst’s voting record.
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Dec 8, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Laura Belin |Jason Benell |Randy Evans |Kurt Meyer
Eleventh in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections. Many factors helped Iowa Republicans expand their already large state legislative majorities in 2024. Two of the most important were Donald Trump’s dominance in the presidential race, and the continued decline in ticket-splitting. By my calculations, Trump carried 71 of the 100 Iowa House districts, up from 63 state House districts the last time he was on the ballot in 2020.
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Dec 7, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Jason Benell |Laura Belin |Randy Evans |Kurt Meyer
Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. He first published this essay on his Substack newsletter, The Odd Man Out. A common refrain, particularly in centrist-to-liberal spaces, is that in order to make any kind of progress or reach consensus, we must always be conciliatory and tread lightly when discussing topics with folks who oppose the prevailing Democratic viewpoint.
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Dec 7, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Porter McNeil |Laura Belin |Randy Evans |Kurt Meyer
Porter McNeil, an Illinois-based communications consultant, was Illinois Communications Director for the Kerry-Edwards’ presidential campaign. He assisted with the 2021 “factory town” report (American Family Voices & 21st Century Democrats) and was re-elected in 2024 to a seat on the Rock Island County Board.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Laura Belin |Randy Evans |Kurt Meyer |Bernie Scolaro
Tenth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections. Across the country, voters elected a record number of women to serve in state legislatures in 2024. About a third of all U.S. state lawmakers will be women next year, and in seven state legislative chambers, women will comprise 50 percent or more of members. In contrast, the 2024 elections moved the Iowa legislature further away from gender parity.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
bleedingheartland.com | Dexter Merschbrock |Randy Evans |Kurt Meyer |Bernie Scolaro
Dexter Merschbrock is a member of National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 373 from Cedar Rapids, spouse to a public school teacher, and father of three. He is originally from Fort Madison. The Iowa Democratic Party’s current state chair Rita Hart often talked in the last two years about the 90,000 Democrats in the state who turned out to vote in 2020, but didn’t turn out in the 2022 midterm elections.
