Today in 1970, Lynn Anderson’s single, “Rose Garden,” began a dozen week sweep as the #1 song on the country charts. It also made it to #3 on the Top 40 charts. It was written by Joe Smith, who had been inspired by the book, “I Never Promised You A Rose Garden,” by Joanne Greenberg. The song became a movie in 1977.
Willie Nelson, has teamed with sons Micah and Lukas, plus Jakob Dylan, Dhani Harrison and Amos Lee for a new cover of a Tom Petty song, with proceeds going to a good cause.
The all-star lineup has recorded their take on “For Real,” a Petty song that was originally recorded in 2000, but wasn’t released until after the singer’s death. appearing on the retrospective, “The Best of Everything.”
Proceeds from the song will benefit Midnight Mission, a Los Angeles homeless shelter and homeless services provider Petty supported.
“When I first was sent this song asking if I wanted to record it, I was quite frankly dumbfounded,” Lukas shared. “It was the whole manifesto of our band [Promise of the Real] in a song. It just shows how connected artists who have integrity are with others who share the same passion and fire for being honest with their soul. Fearless and real.” Check out the song to the right.
Source: Rolling Stone
By CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY
SPRINGFIELD, Va. (AP) — Inside a hotel ballroom near the nation’s capital, a U.S. Army officer with battlefield experience told 120 state and local election officials that they may have more in common with military strategists than they might think.
These government officials are on the front lines of a different kind of battlefield — one in which they are helping to defend American democracy by ensuring free and fair elections.
“Everyone in this room is part of a bigger effort, and it’s only together are we going to get through this,” the officer said.
That officer and other past and present national security leaders had a message to convey to officials from 24 states gathered for a recent training held by a Harvard-affiliated democracy project: They are the linchpins in efforts to defend U.S. elections from an attack by Russia, China or other foreign threats, and developing a military mindset will help them protect the integrity of the vote.
The need for such training reflects how elections security worries have heightened in the aftermath of the 2016 election, when Russian military agents targeted voting systems across the country as part of a multi-pronged effort to influence the presidential election. Until then, the job of local election officials could had been described as akin to a wedding planner who keeps track of who will be showing up on Election Day and ensures all the equipment and supplies are in place.
Now, these officials are on the front lines. The federal government will be on high alert, gathering intelligence and scanning systems for suspicious cyber activity as they look to defend the nation’s elections. Meanwhile, it will be the state and county officials who will be on the ground charged with identifying and dealing with any hostile acts.
“It’s another level of war,” said Jesse Salinas, the chief elections official in Yolo County, California, who attended the training. “You only attack things that you feel are a threat to you, and our democracy is a threat to a lot of these nation-states that are getting involved trying to undermine it. We have to fight back, and we have to prepare.”
Salinas brought four of his employees with him to the training, which was part of the Defending Digital Democracy project based at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. The group has been working actively with former and current military, national security, political and communications experts — many of whom dedicate their time after work and on weekends — to develop training and manuals for state and local election officials. Those involved with leading the training asked for anonymity because of their sensitive positions.
The project’s latest playbook focuses on bringing military best practices to running Election Day operations, encouraging state and local election officials to adopt a “battle staff” command structure with clear responsibilities and standard operating procedures for dealing with minor issues. The project is also providing officials with a free state-of-the-art incident tracking system.
Eric Rosenbach, co-director of the Belfer Center and a former U.S. Army intelligence officer who served as chief of staff to Defense Secretary Ash Carter in the Obama administration, told the group gathered for the training that it “shouldn’t be lost on you that this is a very military-like model.”
“Let’s be honest about it,” Rosenbach said. “If democracy is under attack and you guys are the ones at the pointy end of the spear, why shouldn’t we train that way? Why shouldn’t we try to give you the help that comes with that model and try to build you up and do all we can?”
Instructors stressed the need for election officials to be on the lookout for efforts to disrupt the vote and ensure that communications are flowing up from counties to the state, down from states to the counties, as well a s up and down to the federal government and across states.
Piecing together seemingly disparate actions happening in real-time across geographical locations will allow the nation to defend itself, said Robby Mook, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager in 2016. Mook co-founded the Defending Digital Democracy project with Matt Rhoades, Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign manager.
“Find a way to input data in a consistent, efficient and reliable way to ensure you know what is going on and prevent things from falling through the cracks,” Mook told the election officials. “You got to rise above just putting out fires.”
At the training were officials from California, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, West Virginia and other states. In one exercise, election officials were paired up as either a state or county under an Election Day scenario, charged with logging incidents and trying to piece together what turned out to be four different coordinated campaigns to disrupt voting.
“One of the big takeaways was just how the lack of one piece of information moving up from the counties to the state or moving from the states to counties, if either of those things don’t happen, it can have a significant impact,” said Stephen Trout, elections director for Oregon.
Trout said he would move quickly to acquire, customize and implement the incident tracking system, which would be an upgrade from the paper process currently in use. Dave Tackett, chief information officer for the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office, said he will recommend some structuring changes at his state operations center, including bringing key personnel into the room and incorporating elements of the incident tracking system like mapping and the ability to assign people to specific incidents.
“Events like today are helping us zero in on how to structure ourselves better, how to really think in a different mindset so that we can carry out all the different tasks that have to be done with elections,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina Board of Elections. “(It’s) the importance of communications, the importance of having standard operating procedures in place so all the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed ahead of time and you are prepared for the unknown.”
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Follow Christina Almeida Cassidy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AP_Christina.
BY TODD KIMM
RADIO IOWA – Iowa will honor former coach Hayden Fry by removing the Tigerhawk logo from their helmets in Friday’s Holiday Bowl against USC. Fry died last week at the age of 90. He was responsible for introducing the logo prior to the 1979 season. It is now used by all Hawkeye athletic teams.
“I talked to the family and we are all in agreement it would be a nice thing to just take the Tigerhawks off of our helmets on both sides”, said Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz. “It is just a big loss for everybody in the state of Iowa.”
Fry led the Hawkeyes to three Big Ten titles and three trips to the Rose Bowl in two decades as head coach.
The Hawkeyes will also honor former athletic director Bump Elliott, who died in early December.
“We are going to recognize coach Elliott with a sticker on the back of our helmet that will say Bump on it”, added Ferentz. “That has been in the works for a couple of weeks.”
RADIO IOWA – Iowa is working with five other states to study the availability of alternative fuel along Interstate 80. A federal grant will help determine where electric vehicles can be charged and where compressed natural gas is available.
Stu Anderson, the Iowa DOT’s director of the planning, says the range of the current “early generation” electric vehicles depends on the temperature and wind.
“We have some charging infrastructure which is called Level 2 which charge at a slower rate and take longer to charge,” Anderson says, “but what we really need on these corridors for long-distance travel are the DC fast charging stations, direct current fast charging stations, which do a really high charge in a short period of time.”
Drivers of these vehicles often suffer from something called “range anxiety,” as there are long stretches of road where there are no charging or fill stations. For now, Iowa only has three of the DC-3, or fast charge stations, in Council Bluffs, Des Moines, and Coralville, while Tesla has some stations for its own vehicles.
Anderson says, “So what this planning effort will do is try to really identify the ideal location to fill in gaps and also help identify partnerships to get those facilities developed.” Of those three fast charge sites in Iowa, two are located at gas stations, while the third is in the parking lot of a Walmart.
The difference between Level 2 and the DC-3 charging stations is four to six hours versus 20 to 30 minutes. Anderson says the cost of filling in those gaps with the appropriate electrical service to fast-charge electric vehicles can be very expensive.
“Of course, it’s more than just the charging infrastructure,” he says. “These sites also need to have amenities for the public — some sort of shelter, rest room facilities, adequate lighting, and ideally there’s some kind of restaurant or food availability. So that all comes into the discussion as well.”
From coast to coast, Interstate 80 is 2,900 miles long. The eastern half, known as the Mid-America Corridor, goes from New Jersey, through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, to the western border of Iowa. That includes 306 miles of interstate in Iowa.
(Thanks to Herb Trix, WVIK, Rock Island)
RADIO IOWA – Economists taking stock as Iowa enters the 2020s indicate this decade has been a “bumpy ride” for key sectors, like agriculture and technology. Iowa State University ag economist Chad Hart says there were about 93,000 farms in Iowa in 2007.
“In 2017, they updated the Census of Agriculture. We only had 86,000, so we have seen the number of farms shrink,” Hart says. “That means the average size of the farm has grown…It takes more money to farm these days. We’ve seen incomes rise, but we’ve also seen expenses rise.”
The other thing that’s rising is the number of farmers who have off-the-farm jobs, according to Hart.
“We have some farm families that are surviving by not necessarily growing the farm, but relying upon the farm as part of the portfolio of their economic activity,” Hart says.
Creighton University economist Ernie Goss says there’s more volatility in Iowa’s agriculture and manufacturing sectors now than in previous decades because of global competition.
“This presents challenges but opportunities,” Goss says. “One other factor that Iowa has been pretty successful historically in attracting workers from other nations. That’s legal migration and, of course, that’s slowed down pretty dramatically over the last couple of years.”
Dave Swenson, another economist from Iowa State University, says manufacturing and construction are “reasonably bright spots” in Iowa’s economy.
“In contrast to the nation, we have more people working in construction than we did before the ‘Great Recession,’” Swenson says, “and our manufacturing sector has recovered to close to what it was prior to the recession.”
But Swenson says while the state’s unemployment rate is historically low, overall job growth in Iowa lags behind most other states.
“We have fewer fast-growing sectors in our economy compared to the nation,” Swenson says. “Our information sector contracted sharply, but the subset of that information sector — for example, IT — it also contracted. Whereas nationally IT and IT-related business opportunities are growing and especially in hot spots like Seattle and the San Francisco area and Denver and places like that.”
Goss, the Creighton University economist, regularly surveys purchasing managers and bankers in Iowa and other Midwest states. He’s concerned by the declining number of independent banks.
“That becomes a real challenge for lending in the area as farmers, manufacturers, individuals don’t have a source for borrowing or savings in a bank that’s locally tied,” Goss says. “Those banks that are independent, community banks — they understand their customers.”
According to the State Banking Division, about 30 state-chartered banks closed between 2011 and 2018 and more than 50 federally-regulated community banks closed during that period. Those trends are happening in other states as well.
Iowa ranks 30th overall in terms of economic output. According to the latest federal data, the state’s gross domestic product rose just over one percent in the second quarter of this year.
This is a story about Christmas. A young lady named Christmas who plays for the William Penn University women’s basketball team. Christmas Pouk explains how she got her name.
“I was born December 24, so Christmas Eve. My mom thought it was a perfect choice to choose Christmas. And in our culture, the South Sudanese culture, Nya, you put it before a girl’s name, so it’s Girl Christmas (Nyachristmas).”
She admits her name has some disadvantages.
“Almost every day (laughs). People really think that I’m not being serious. They’re like ‘ Are you sure your name’s Christmas? Is this a joke?’ And I’m like,’No, that’s really my name.'”
And here’s the obvious question: What would Christmas like for Christmas?
“Hmmmm….(laughs)…I would like to come back and go and win the (Heart of America Athletic) Conference championship to take us to nationals. That’s what I want for Christmas.”
By ZEKE MILLER
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump is calling members of the military stationed across the world to share greetings ahead of the Christmas holiday. Trump is speaking by video conference with service members from all five branches from his private club in Florida, where is he is on a more than two-week vacation.
Trump has been largely out of the spotlight since delivering a speech to conservative students in nearby West Palm Beach on Saturday, spending his days golfing on his private course and greeting the well-heeled members of his clubs.
“I want to wish you an amazing Christmas,” Trump told the group, which included Marines in Afghanistan, an Army unit in Kuwait, a Navy unit in the Gulf of Aden and a Coast Guard station in Alaska.
Trump was also asked what he’d bought his wife, first lady Melania Trump, for Christmas. He said he’d bought her a “beautiful card,” but was “still working on a Christmas present.”
“You made me think. I’m going to have to start working on that real fast,” he said.
The holidays are touted in song as being the most wonderful time of the year, but between family squabbles, travel troubles, money issues and more, it can be a very stressful time for many of us.
Mary Limas, a therapist with the Senior Life Program at Van Diest Medical Center in Webster City, says the best gift you can give yourself for Christmas is to learn some coping skills.
“Some things are out of your control and the sooner we recognize this, the better,” Limas says. “We cannot control the weather, the traffic or actions of other people. Focus on what you can control and not what you can’t.”
For all the things we can’t control, Limas says there are things over which we -do- have power, including when family and relationships are involved.
“We do have the power to control our actions and reactions,” Limas says. “We can control ourselves and how we react to things but we can’t control others’ reactions and how other people behave. By focusing on what you can control, you become not only less stressed but more empowered.”
In today’s society, we’re taught to never surrender, but in terms of holiday stress, Limas says surrender can be sweet.
“When we release resistance and welcome acceptance, we actively reduce our suffering,” Limas says. “Finding acceptance helps decrease stress and other difficult emotions while increasing feelings of liberation. So, by learning to surrender or letting go, you actually win.”
If discussion about politics during holiday gatherings brings you stress, Limas says you need to look inward.
“Some people think we can’t take charge of our thoughts, but we can,” Limas says. “The goal is to not ignore or deny the thoughts but rather see them clearly and acknowledge them, and if you need to change them, depending on if it’s positive or negative. Some people talk about how what you think is what you become and that is easily the case.”
Limas says we need to strive to enjoy the holiday season in our own ways, and not let stress be a part of it.
(Reporting by Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)
District Judge Joel Yates has issued an ruling on Cristhian Bahena Rivera’s Motion to Suppress Evidence finding that the majority of evidence and testimony at issue is admissible for use at trial.
In his Monday opinion, Judge Yates did suppress any statements made by Bahena Rivera between when he was read his Miranda rights improperly and when he was read them properly about six hours later, but went on to rule that Bahena Rivera did consent to the search of his car, that his statements were made voluntarily despite his claims of sleep deprivation and lengthy interrogation, and that law enforcement did not use language likely to induce a false confession, according to court documents.
Trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 4, 2020, in Woodbury County. If convicted of the first-degree murder of University of Iowa student, Molly Tibbetts, Bahena Rivera would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
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