Essential Estrogen

What could be better than spending the evening with an exceptional group of Iowa Democratic women? For me, it would be getting honored by that same group of women for something I had a great time doing. Last fall, I helped DAWN’s List put together a seminar for Democratic women. My contribution included putting together [...]

A Des Moines man phoned emergency services at 5:15 a.m. this morning to let them know that he had accidentally beaten his girlfriend to death. KCCI reporter Keri Gavin said police have told her the body of a woman was found at the scene in the back of a pickup truck. The truck is parked [...]

Here’s a great opportunity for those who live in or near Des Moines to hear directly from the current director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. The Iowa Initiative, in partnership with Des Moines University Global Health and the Iowa Department of Public Health, will welcome Director Melody Barnes to Des Moines this Wednesday, [...]

First let me to say that this blog post is WAY overdue. My apologies for that. Things have been running a little bit crazy with family and work. DAWN’s List (Democratic Activist Women’s Network) held an Iowa Women’s Summit in Des Moines on March 28. (Told you this post was long overdue!) The keynote speaker [...]

While checking status updates on facebook, I read this from Mona Shaw, a former candidate for Johnson County Auditor: “Mona Shaw got kicked out the Whitehouse Healthcare Summit in Des Moines for trying to ask a question. Btw, Secret Service dudes can really squeeze hard.” I’m not at the forum today (had my fill of [...]

Immigration is a hot topic around Iowa these days. Given the recent federal immigration raid on Agriprocessors, a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, and the 2006 raid of Swift & Co., a Marshalltown meatpacking plant, the timing for a discussion forum Thursday at Des Moines Area Community College could not have been better planned. Although [...]

Between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. today, members of the Des Moines Police Department and the Iowa State Patrol completed the first of several traffic enforcement projects as a part of the “Alive on I-235″ enforcement effort. In the roughly six hours that law enforcement patrolled east and west traffic on I-235 [...]

It isn’t unusual for Iowa high school students Stacey Hoch and Venessa McDole, both peer advisors, to speak with their classmates about sensitive subjects. Thursday morning, however, they took their advocacy one step further by speaking in front of policymakers at a meeting hosted in Des Moines by FutureNet, an Iowa network for adolescent pregnancy [...]

A statewide smoking ban was approved Tuesday by the Iowa House Commerce Committee. The bill, managed by Rep. Tyler Olson of Cedar Rapids, was approved with two additional exemptions — casinos and federally chartered veterans organization that are closed to the public. “Secondhand smoke contains 60 chemicals that cause cancer, asthma and other respiratory diseases,” [...]

Three women — one of them a newly announced endorser — led the way when former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards took the stage in Cedar Rapids Monday night to wrap up his “Main Street Express” bus tour across Iowa. “Nothing that I have done in my life is more important than what I’m doing [...]