By Emily Geiger

I have mixed feelings about the CIETC verdicts that came down yesterday. I think it’s too bad that the jury was so lenient with some of the defendants, but it also seems like the government didn’t have the strongest case.

Jane Barto was convicted of obstruction for trying to cover things up after the fact to save her own skin. She was acquitted of the conspiracy charge, meaning the jury did not think that she was part of orchestrating this mess. I guess they thought she and Ramona weren’t discussing business during their drinking soirees. I’m also guessing the fact that Barto worked for Workforce Development and was not receiving an exorbitant salary herself had something to do with this verdict. If she really was sticking her neck out to funnel CIETC officials all this money so they could give themselves bonuses, wouldn’t she want a piece of the pie, too? Unless there was some evidence that Ramona or one of the others was personally giving kickbacks to Barto (which I never heard anything about), I do think it seems rather unlikely that she would risk her own job just to get her drinking buddy some extra cash.

Karen Tesdell drew the short end of the stick. She was an accountant who actually worked at CIETC and got a much higher salary than she deserved compared to other state workers with similar positions and qualifications. She is also, I think, in her 70’s, so it will be interesting to see what sentence she gets. It could be as much as 30 years, but I’ve heard that it will be more like 10. I’m sure the judge will feel bad tossing a grandma in the slammer, but, apparently the jury didn’t let that get in their way, so maybe the judge won’t either. This also does not bode well for Ramona. It seems like the jury did not take too kindly to those who worked at CIETC and actually benefitted financially from the scam.

Dan Albritton… what to say? He got off scot free; the conspiracy count against him was dismissed. The conspiracy theorist in me wondered whether Dan’s union thug buddies maybe paid a visit to any jury members or their families. I did find it a little weird that the first people he thanked on his way out of the courthouse were the unions for standing by him in this difficult time.

Another part of me thinks that it was just too hard to prove that he helped manipulate the system to make it easier for Ramona to get her bonuses without any testimony from Ramona to that effect. Yes, we heard about how they were doing the nasty, and we can make assumptions based on that, and we’d probably be right. But apparently these assumptions were not clear enough to surpass reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors.

Too bad, because my suspicion is that this guy was in it up to his eyeballs, just like Archie. Once again, it would have been helpful if they could have shown that he personally profited from this whole mess. Too bad they didn’t have evidence of something like Ramona buying him extravagant gifts….

Given their apparently very close relationship, you have to wonder if part of the whole crazy act from Ramona was so that she wouldn’t have to testify against her boy toy. It sure looks to me like that helped him out an awful lot.

On a side note, I’m guessing Archie is kicking himself today, wondering if he could have gotten off just like Albritton if he hadn’t taken the plea deal.

And on another side note, could Ramona pick any ickier guys to sleep with? Obviously the jury didn’t consider the argument that ol’ Dan must have been helping Ramona manipulate the system for her financial gain, ‘cause no one would want to get naked with that guy for free.

I can’t begin to tell you how frustrated I am with many of the Republican legislators in Des Moines. Not only did they agree to a $32 million dollar tax increase when they voted for the statewide SILO tax, they also took control away from parents and taxpayers and gave it to bureaucrats in Des Moines.

So let me see here, on just this one vote, these Republicans have told us they favor tax increases, they oppose limited government, and they don’t trust local people to make good decisions about their own school districts.

So what does the word Republican mean here in Iowa? Social Conservative? Nope, that was made crystal clear last year when we saw legislators side with the Democrats and their far left social agenda. I have no clue what they stand for anymore. Oh sure we could talk about the expansion of the collective bargaining agreement and the Right to Work issue, but that’s it. And those two issues should be slam dunks for a Republican Legislators, but their track record makes me worry that they could mess that up as well.

In some Republican circles, people are talking about how the Iowa Future Fund or Iowa Progress Project is the vehicle that will rebuild the Republican Party here in Iowa. I don’t buy it. I appreciate their work on the collective bargaining bill, but it takes more than just one issue to build a party. If they are the new Republican Party, where were they on the SILO bill?

Sadly, there is only one way to reverse our course; we must elect a Republican Governor in 2010. And not just anyone with an R behind their name. This person must stand on principle. There are very few that fit the bill. We will discuss our possibilities next week.

This didn’t cheer me up either…

So the $2 billion that Iowa received from the tobacco settlement is gone. Well actually only $500 million because we didn’t or couldn’t wait for the money to come in over 25 years. What is odd is that the tobacco money was to be used to prevent smoking. Obviously that $500 million was wasted because it didn’t work.  In fact, we had to ban smoking and raise the taxes on them over the past two years.

Another ringing endorsement of our Iowa elected officials.

By Emily Geiger

I’m annoyed.

And it’s because of the new tax increase just passed in both houses of the Legislature which will transform the local option school infrastructure sales taxes (which have been enacted in most of Iowa’s counties) and make it one statewide tax. As we say here at Battleground Iowa when the legislature is in session: another day, another tax increase.

What’s annoying is that the Dems have taken the one legitimate argument in favor of the bill and played on people’s emotions to get it passed (with the help of naïve Republicans who were dumb enough to fall for this emotional tripe).

Who doesn’t think that every Iowa school kid should get the same amount of money put toward their education as any other Iowa school kid? That’s a great argument. But there are other aspects of he bill that make it troubling.

For example, with the traditional local option sales taxes, they were enacted by a vote of the people. They expired after a period of time, and then the people of the county got to vote again to see if they wanted to continue with the sales tax. That means there was accountability. If the people didn’t like how the school district was using the money, they could take the money away.

The tax the legislature just passed would not expire for 20 years, which doesn’t leave much room for that accountability to take place. Plus, I’m guessing that the state will be so dependent on the revenue from the new tax by the end of that 20 years, there’s no way in hell the legislature is ever going to actually let it expire.

The other part of the bill that has people worried is that there is really no safeguard that would require this tax money to be spent on school infrastructure like it is now with the local option taxes. It won’t take long for this money to be used to fund Culver’s new, high teacher salaries and various other things that this money was never supposed to be used for. And, I’m guessing it won’t be long after that until this money just gets thrown into the general fund for whatever use the power-hungry majority sees fit.

Some legislators wanted a constitutional amendment that would ensure that future legislatures can’t steal this money for other purposes (similar to amendment passed this session safeguarding water conservation fund money). The Dems wanted no part of that.

Don’t believe me? Think I’m riding the wave down the slippery slope argument? Well, lets look at what happened with that settlement money the state got when we sued big tobacco 10 years ago. That money was supposed to go towards anti-smoking campaigns, cancer treatment and other tobacco-related expenses. First, the state forewent the $2 billion they were supposed to receive over a period of years for a lump sum payment of $500 million. Then they proceeded to spend it as fast as they could. And when it became apparent that there were budget shortfalls that needed to be met, these “designated funds” were spent on other crap the legislature thought we couldn’t live without.

Now, the tobacco settlement funds are gone.

So, do you really trust that this new sales tax will go to benefit our schools for years to come?

By Emily Geiger

What the hell is wrong with the Democrats? Iowa House Speaker (and Union Thug) Pat Murphy of Dubuque is now using his position to work out his personal vendettas.

You know how we always hear about how Iowa hospitals are way at the bottom of the rankings for Medicaid reimbursements? Well, the legislature tried to do something about that this year. Apparently, if the state were to give a little more money, the feds would give a lot more.

But here’s the catch. Because of the way the Dems at the statehouse wrote this bill, one particular hospital will be excluded from getting any additional money. That one hospital is Finley Hospital in Dubuque, the home district for the aforementioned Union Thug. And, it also happens that Finley employs Union Thug’s wife. Finley recently was in a heated dispute with the Services Employees International Union, of which Union Thug’s wife is apparently a member. At the time the dispute was going on, Union Thug himself called for the resignation of various Finley Hospital administrators.

Nobody resigned or lost their job, so now it looks like Thug Murphy is going to take his pound of flesh out of the hospital’s finances instead. The kicker is that the Dems didn’t even bother to check with feds to see if their twisted plan is legal. If the feds determine it isn’t (which seems fairly likely), that means ALL Iowa hospitals could lose their federal funding.

The stupid part of this whole thing is that Murphy is only hurting the people he’s supposed to represent. What doctor is going to want to go practice in Dubuque if he’s only going to get paid less than half of what his services are worth? Further, I’m guessing that more doctors are probably just going to refuse to treat Dubuque’s Medicaid patients altogether.

This is what we get from the Dems: vengeful, spiteful, egotistical, self-centered, power-abusive, childish behavior. All while the lowly little constituents suffer.

Pennsylvania Showdown

Hillary Clinton is out of money but holding on to a slim lead in the Keystone State. Senator Obama has outspent the former First Lady 4-1 leading up to today’s primary. Clinton needs a big win to be able to sway the Super Delegates that she still can win, but she just needs a victory to raise some much needed money that would allow her to continue on to the next round of primaries.

Prediction: Clinton wins by 7 points

Why, because the talking heads on the networks will not know what to think about it. Trust me, if it’s a 10 point win they are ready to call it the biggest comeback in history. If its 5 points or less they will say she needs to hang it up. It’s never what they want to report so I’m going with a 7 point Clinton victory.

Winners and Losers from the Republican District Conventions

When all the chairs were put away after Saturday’s district conventions, 8 new Central committee members were elected. Another new face will be added at the State Convention when the Republican Delegates elect a new National Committee Woman. That’s 9 new faces to a committee that only has 19 members (3 members from each congressional district, the National Committeeman and Committeewoman, the Chair and Co-Chair).

Members who were re-elected:

Karl Gilbertson (1^st CD), John Ortega (1^st CD), Lisa Smith (2^nd CD), Steve Scheffler (3^rd CD), Matt Randall (4^th CD), Reid Houser (5^th CD), and Bill Anderson (5^th CD).

New members:

John Hulsizer (1st CD), David Chung (2nd CD), Jason Hutcheson (2nd CD), Gopaul Krisna (3rd CD), Eldon Pals (3rd CD), Bill Schikel (4th CD), Isaiah McGee (4th CD), and Monte Shaw (5th CD).

Winners and Losers:

Iowa Christian Alliance: (Winner) A quick look at the makeup of the new SCC will show you that Steve Scheffler and the ICA have added some strong allies to the committee. Now that doesn’t me that they will control the direction of the party, but they will be a force to be reckoned with on the major decisions that the committee will make. It will take 9 votes to elect after the 2008 election and by my count this group has 8 of them.

The Real Sporer: (Push) Sporer took his frustrations with RPI to the radio and to the mail boxes of the delegates in the 4^th and 5^th congressional districts, the results were mixed. It was clear that he was advocating for the defeat of Bonnie Hall, Matt Randall and Reid Houser, only Hall was defeated. Sporer also advocated for the election of Stan Gustafson who was not successful in his bid for a seat on the committee. Sporer did get a warm welcome in the 3^rd CD.

4^th CD Republicans: (Winner) The 4th Congressional District now has a great slate of people representing the district. They are also more spread out geographically with McGee in Dallas County, Randall in Story County, and Schikel in Cerro Gordo. The far NE corner of the district is still without a member from their area, but that is an area of the state which can not be neglected. There are some very important legislative races up in that area.

I always hated the Scooter Store

But never knew why. I guess when ever I see a TV commercial telling people they can get a free scooter it makes me angry. Its not free, the taxpayers are buying it for you, but we never get a thank you note.

Now I see the Scooter Store has been accused of fraud. And if you’re paying any attention where ever there is fraud, Tom Harkin can be found (CIETC).