Winners

A proposal to cap the salaries of officials in job-training agencies that receive federal money was approved by the U.S. Senate last week (as part of a larger not-yet-passed emergency spending bill) with the charge being led by our own Tom Harkin - the workingman's hero who helped funnel so much cash into CIETC, that entity named its learning center after him. "We must establish executive compensation caps in WIA-funded programs," a statement from Harkin read. "Over the years, I have fought hard to secure scarce job-training funds for my state of Iowa because I know that quality job training provides a ladder of opportunity to many thousands of hard-pressed Americans" - not to mention a few $300,000 annual salaries for individuals who might only have mere GEDs, but, more importantly, are cozy with the "right" people. Ah, the American dream.

Losers

Looking back at his final State of the State address, Gov. Tom Vilsack didn't exactly get what he wanted this legislative session - in fact, some could argue that he got none of it. No cigarette tax; no large early childhood proposal to put every single four-year-old in the state's school aid formula; no teacher academies as proposed in his original budget; no large healthcare initiative for businesses to dip into; no beer tax; no, no, no. And while the governor did propose raising teacher salaries in January, Republicans actually proposed to raise them higher - giving little wiggle room for the ISEA to pick at Republicans on the stump come fall. Add to it that Vilsack failed to even mention making life better for Iowa's senior citizens, while the GOP pushed for and passed legislation to cut seniors' taxes, eliminate Social Security taxes for them, while repaying the Living Trust Fund by $50 million, and one could argue his last go-around was an unmitigated disaster.

It's often said that if you don't like the weather in Iowa just wait 10 minutes and it'll change. The same might be said about Republican Congressman Steve King: If you can't remember the last time he said something outrageous, offensive or downright asinine, just wait 10 days and he'll go on some delusional kick about how Joseph McCarthy was a great American hero. So, with the "National Day Without Immigrants" slated for this week - a "total boycott" during which thousands of immigrants exhibited their demands for fair, comprehensive immigration reform by staying home from work and refraining from all manners of economic consumption - even Ed Wilson could have forecast a shit storm courtesy of the King of anti-immigrant sentiment. Hell bent on inspiring irrational fear of so-called "illegal aliens," King penned a brazenly bigoted column last week, denouncing the national protest on predictably bizarre grounds, arguing "first, the threatened boycott fails to conjure the image of a Norwegian refusing to buy his May 1 lutefisk at the corner store." Even more intellectually tenuous than hollow gripes about historical trivia, however, King's addled logic went on to make unattributed accusations about immigrants' penchant for criminal activity, suggesting that, during a day without immigrants, "the lives of 12 U.S. citizens would be saved who would otherwise die a violent death at the hands of murderous illegal aliens" and hospitals would be spared a flood of non-white patients seeking attention for "everything from imported diseases to hangnails." The self-aggrandizing congressman, of course, failed to mention how many U.S. citizens lose their lives at the hands of murderous white men of European descent each day, and neglected to point out that those hangnails happen to be the product of essential labor that keeps the economy kicking - like that Tyson plant situated smack dab in the middle of King's district. Then again, hate-inspired half-truths are hardly surprising coming from a guy who could mark every day of his political career a "Day Without Intelligence." CV

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