It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!

Traitor:

Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds endorsed a rival of Donald Trump in the Iowa GOP caucuses, but threw her support behind the former president Wednesday after he nearly swept Super Tuesday presidential nominating contests.



“Joe Biden has been a disaster for our country. Higher prices, inflation, an open border, crime, and the destruction of America’s image on the world stage,” Reynolds posted Wednesday afternoon on the social media platform X.


“I will do everything to defeat him and elect Donald J. Trump for President of the United States!” she wrote, following it with an American flag emoji.




About two months before Iowa’s Republican caucuses, Reynolds — in an unusual move for any sitting Iowa governor leading up to the caucuses — endorsed a presidential candidate: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.


“To be quite honest, he is one of the most effective leaders I have ever seen,” Reynolds said of DeSantis in November. “We need someone who will fight for you and win for you, someone who won’t get distracted but will stay disciplined, who puts his country first and not himself. That leader is Ron DeSantis.”


When Trump heard of the news of her endorsement, he called Reynolds “disloyal” and said on social media that it would be the "the end of her political career." He also took out TV ads in response, showing Reynolds praising him in previous rallies, dating back to 2016.


DeSantis came in a distant second in the Iowa Republican caucuses in January and soon dropped out of the race. On Tuesday, Trump won more than a dozen Republican nominating contests, which pushed his last main rival — former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley — from the GOP presidential race.

One year! What?!?

A former Chicago police officer who forced a woman to engage in a sex act in his squad car in 2019 was sentenced to a year in federal prison, prosecutors said Monday.

James Sajdak, 65, pleaded guilty in November to one count of deprivation of civil rights, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois said in a statement.

He was sentenced Friday to the maximum allowed for the misdemeanor charge.

On March 5, 2019, Sajdak flashed the lights of his police vehicle at a woman walking on the street and said something like “You can get in the front seat or you can get in the back,” which he meant to be a threat of arrest, Sajdak admitted in a plea agreement. The woman got in the front seat.

Sajdak locked the doors, drove to an abandoned lot and forced her to do a sex act, the plea agreement said.

Sajdak, a police officer since 1989, retired after the incident. The victim sued him and the city, and the case was settled, according to records and his defense attorneys. He was federally indicted in 2022.

Sajdak “abused the power and responsibility with which he had been entrusted,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-chicago-police-officer-sentenced-062229490.html

Who enters the portal from Iowa when it opens up

These jaggoffs are now in the same bullpen. Dafuq Royals, why?

Since the citizens and taxpayers of St Croix County banded together and stood up, this is your chance to reach out to World Relief and take this garbage into your own neighborhoods, schools and homes!! Time to walk the walk!!

Who is laughing...who is crying?

Please

Where will it be held, who is hosting?

Thanks

Lol..The party whose message to the people days before the election was: Where's Hunter? Is embarrassed yet again.

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Gee...I wonder what "ideology" that would be? Does it start with an M?

A Michelin-starred chef is opening a Cincinnati-style chili parlor in Chicago. Suck it, Cincinnati chili haters.

Link

The city of University Heights, known for its strict enforcement of its speed limits on Melrose Avenue leading to the University of Iowa, is installing speed cameras on that heavily traveled street and another east-west route.



The cameras would be placed in the 1200 block of Melrose Avenue, which has a 25 mph speed limit, and in the 100 block of Koser Avenue, which has a 20 mph limit.

Troy Kelsay, University Heights police chief (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
The cameras and accompanying signage are being installed, though University Heights Police Chief Troy Kelsay doesn’t yet know when the cameras will go live.


When the cameras start operating, he said, there will be a 30-day grace period during which speeding motorists will receive a warning in the mail rather than a citation and fine.


Fines will start at $105 for drivers going more than 11 mph over the speed limit and increase in 5 mph increments. The fine increases to $120, for example, for drivers going 16 mph over the limit, $140 at 21 mph over the limit and $165 at 26 mph over the limit.


Kelsay said that since he was hired as police chief five years ago, he has consistently heard complaints from residents about speeding in the community, specifically on Melrose and Koser.


Melrose is the most direct east-west street through the city, which is surrounded by Iowa City. Kelsay said that some drivers use Koser to get avoid the traffic on Melrose, and that speeding is common on both streets.


A Flourish map

Speed data​

Data gathered over a few days in April and May showed that about 15 percent of drivers on Koser and about 11 percent of the drivers on Melrose were driving more than 10 mph over the posted speed limits on those streets.


“I expect those numbers to drop as people start to get warning notices, and if we can get it to 99 percent compliance or more, that would be fantastic,” he said. “And by compliance, … I'm not talking about driving 26 in a 25. I'm just saying, don’t go 36. If we never issue a citation, that's a win. That means that we've slowed everybody.”


University Heights, population 1,200, has a reputation as a “speed trap,” with The Gazette reporting in 2016 that the city issued 907 speeding tickets in a year’s time, compared to 617 in Iowa City, population 75,000.


Kelsay said those numbers, however, were artificially inflated because the department regularly participated in a speed enforcement grant program through the Iowa Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau. In the program, the department could receive grant money by participating in speed enforcement projects outside of the city.


“You had tickets being written by the University Heights Police Department to people who didn't know where University Heights was. They weren't ever driving through University Heights. It was all on the up-and-up — the state was paying them to do it — but the optics of it were, frankly, poor, in my opinion,” said Kelsay, who wasn’t police chief at the time.


In 2023, the University Heights Police Department made 109 traffic stops, and traffic tickets were issued in 16 of those stops. One stop ended with an arrest, which also may have included a traffic ticket, Kelsay said.

Traffic cameras​

Because of the city’s reputation as a speed trap, Kelsay said he was at first reluctant to consider automated traffic enforcement, or ATE. He talked with the city council about the speed cameras, and they decided to explore other options.


The city had worked with the Metropolitan Planning Organization of Johnson County on studies — in 2017, 2018 and 2022 — that explored the possibility of other traffic control techniques on Koser, where residents have been particularly vocal about speeding, according to Kelsay.


The planning organization looked at the possibility of adding speed humps to the road in 2017, but recommended against it, saying that the low speed limit would require the humps to be placed too close together.


In 2018 and 2022, the MPO examined placing an additional stop sign on Koser but determined its intersections weren’t busy enough to warrant another stop sign for traffic control, Kelsay said.


“As the city’s efforts to reduce speeds through more traditional methods were proving unfruitful, we started looking more and more into the traffic cameras, gathering more and more information,” Kelsay said.


The University Heights City Council on July 11, 2023, unanimously authorized the mayor to sign a contract with Traffipax, a Florida-based company, to install and maintain the cameras. There will be no upfront cost to the city for the cameras, but Traffipax will take 35 percent of paid citation fines.


On Sept. 12, 2023, the council unanimously changed the city code to allow for the use of traffic cameras.


Kelsay said he believes the cameras will be effective at reducing speeds in University Heights because both of the roads the cameras will be placed on only have one lane going each direction.


Even if the threat of a fine only slows down one driver on the road, all of the other cars behind that driver will be forced to slow down as well.


“If I could put billboards up, I would,” he said. “We’re adding signage. … We’re also going to add another radar feedback sign. I want people, the community wants people, to know that those traffic cameras are there. Our goal is to reduce speeds and make the road safer.”


University Heights will be the first city in Johnson County to install speed enforcement cameras. In Linn County, Cedar Rapids and Marion police make use of the speed and red-light cameras.

Iowa Legislature​

Installation of the speed cameras in University Heights comes as the Iowa Legislature is considering two bills to regulate — or ban — the cameras.


Senate File 489, supported by law enforcement, would require cities and counties to obtain state Department of Transportation approval to install the cameras, whose revenue often goes toward funding police departments.


Another bill, Senate Study Bill 3016, would ban the cameras and also enact stricter prohibitions on the use of cellphones while driving. Law enforcement and cities oppose the ban, though law enforcement has long sought the ban on cellphone use while driving.

Paul Alexander, who was stricken with polio as a boy and spent more than 70 years needing an iron lung chamber to help him breathe but obtained a law degree and later gained a social media following as he recounted tales of his life, died March 11. He was 78.

The death was announced in a statement from his brother Philip but no other details were immediately made public. “So many people were inspired by Paul,” he wrote. “I am just so grateful.”

Mr. Alexander was recently hospitalized for treatment of covid-19, his social media site said. He was later released.
Mr. Alexander, a native of Dallas, contracted polio in 1952 when he was 6. Within days, he was nearly fully paralyzed and close to death, unable to breathe on his own. A doctor performed an emergency tracheotomy to suction congestion from the boy’s lungs.



He awoke with his body inside an iron lung, a device that uses air pressure to help patients breathe after paralysis of their chest muscles. As polio cases rose in the 1940s and ’50s, some hospital wards in the United States had rows of iron lungs.

“I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t yell. I couldn’t cry,” Mr. Alexander told the podcast “Pandemia” in 2022. “I couldn’t do anything.”
He eventually regained his ability to speak and developed techniques to breathe on his own, and spent increasing periods outside the iron lung. “I gulped in the air and swallowed it with my lungs,” he said.
He received a high school diploma at 21 with the help of a tutor who spent years with Mr. Alexander. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas in 1978, then received a law degree in 1984, and worked as a lawyer for decades. He often spent much of the day outside the iron lung, but he was never fully free of the device.



As his health deteriorated in recent years, Mr. Alexander had to spend increasing amounts of time inside the chamber.
The title of his self-published memoir in 2020, “Three Minutes for a Dog: My Life in an Iron Lung,” describes his first attempts to breathe on his own as a boy after returning from the hospital inside the iron lung. As a reward for his effort, he received a pet dog. The book took him eight years to finish, sometimes dictating passages or using a plastic stick to tap on a keyboard.
“My life was a combination of one … adventure, miracle — whatever you want to call it — after another,” he once said.

Here in Iowa, Republicans control the governor’s office, the Senate and the House. We have a Republican attorney general, treasurer and secretary of state. Boards and commissions are stacked with GOP appointees. The Iowa Supreme Courts and lower courts are packed with justices and judges appointed by Republican governors.



We really should go to a Halmark store and buy Iowa Republicans one of those “Congratulations on Your Near Total Control of State Government.” I think it’s part of Hallmark’s “Cry more, libs” collection.


“My, oh, my you’re on a roll. You’ve taken almost complete control! You’ve won so much you’re tired of winning. Make your foes do all your bidding!”




And yet, it’s not enough. It’s never enough.


Take the bill which just passed the Iowa Senate allowing state agencies to skip having the state auditor look over their books. Instead, agencies could hire a private auditing firm. That comes after a bill passed last year making it more difficult for the auditor to obtain information from state agencies.


The state auditor, Rob Sand, is the lone Democratic statewide elected official. His nemesis, Sen. Mike Bousselot, R-Ankeny, spearheaded both legislative efforts to defang the auditor’s office and shield executive branch agencies under the control of Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds from Sand’s meddling and watchdogging.


Isn’t that what voters wanted when they reelected Sand? Who cares? Besides, an election is only legitimate when Republicans win.





Then there’s legislation that marks the latest chapter in Republican efforts to crush public sector unions. They’re full of Democrats, you know.


In 2017, the Republican majority gutted collective bargaining rights for public workers, narrowing bargaining to wages and requiring bargaining units to hold annual certification elections.


This year, Republicans are pushing legislation that will decertify a bargaining unit if management fails to send the state a list of unit members before a certification vote. Sure, the union can go to court, but why should it be placed in this position by no fault of its members? It’s just one more trap door Republicans are creating to make it harder and harder for government employees to stick with the union.


Since Republicans took over seven years ago, the list goes on and on. Any institution in Iowa inhabited by Iowans who aren’t totally down with the hard-right, red-state agenda must be taken over, damaged or hobbled. Dissent shall not be tolerated.


Reynolds spent the better part of two years maligning public schools, which she and other Republicans argued are chock full of liberal indoctrinators, “pornographic” library books and drag shows. She painted this scary picture of public education to build support for publicly funded private school scholarships. Now she’s going after Area Education Agencies, hoping their services will be handed to private companies.


Reynolds and the Legislature have anointed themselves as the state school board, dictating what books schools can have in libraries, what curriculum they can teach – no LGBTQ themes and no history that makes white lawmakers uncomfortable – and how they would handle the pandemic. Not even the defeat of book-banning Moms for Liberty school board candidates could curb the impulse to micromanage school districts.


Local control has been blown sky high. There are blue cities and counties in this state that refused to toe the Republican line. Counties can’t raise the local minimum wage or prohibit discrimination against renters who use government housing aid to cover the rent. Local governments can’t cut public safety or they risk losing state funding. County auditors can’t set up satellite voting centers unless petitioned by citizens, nor can they set up drop boxes in addition to a box set up near the auditor’s office. A bill being considered this year would make all drop boxes illegal.


Bills remain alive that would prohibit local governments from requiring topsoil replacement on finished building sites and abolish traffic enforcement cameras installed by communities.


At state universities, clear bastions of non-red-state thinking, Republicans have forced the Board of Regents and campus leaders to curtail Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs. Instead of focusing on racial diversity or the rights of LGBTQ students, the emphasis will be on ideological diversity. Namely, making the schools friendlier for conservatives.


The regents, including five Republicans, three independents and one Democrat, are uniquely qualified to rise to this challenge.


As mentioned, more voting restrictions are under consideration. Reynolds’ government reorganization gives unprecedented power to the governor. Legislation filed this year would give her appointed “administrative rule coordinator” virtual veto power over state rules and regulations. Positions that used to be insulated from political pressure now serve strictly at the pleasure of the governor. Boards and commissions that might question the governor’s agenda have been rendered powerless, diluted or axed.


Once upon a time, Iowa’s state government was powered by friction.


That friction was generated by split partisan control of the levers of power. A Republican governor had to work with a Democratic Legislature. A Democratic governor had to work with a Republican Legislature. Sometimes, one chamber of the General Assembly was controlled by Republicans with the other controlled by Democrats.


Those were the days when Iowans had to come up with solutions. They weren’t cooked up in some ideological bill mill spreading its bad ideas to many states.


Now, state government runs on high octane pure red ideology that must seep into every nook and cranny in Iowa. I don’t use the term “authoritarian” just to get a rise out of readers. I just don’t know what else you can call a government that insists its authority should have no limits.


When will it finally be enough? We already know the answer.


(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com

Opinion: Powerful Iowa Republicans reach for even more power

Jesse Case, Secretary-Treasurer and Principal Officer of Teamsters Local 238 in Iowa, speaks during a news conference held as labor …

www.thegazette.com

The FBI data show serious incidents against LGBTQ+ people are on the rise, particularly in the more than two dozen states that have passed laws targeting LGBTQ+ students or education. Some of these laws, like those enacted in Oklahoma, bar students from competing on sports teams or using school bathrooms that do not conform with their sex assigned at birth. Others circumscribe what teachers can teach about gender identity or sexual orientation or bar instruction on these subjects entirely.
Overall, there were an average of 108 anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes at schools reported to the FBI per year from 2015 to 2019 on both college and K-12 campuses. In 2021 and 2022, the most recent for which data were available, the average more than doubled to 232. (The number of reported hate crimes overall dropped in 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic shut down many school campuses, forcing learning online.)

The rise was even steeper in states that have enacted laws or policies which restrict LGBTQ+ students’ education or rights at school — tripling from an average of about 28 per year from 2015-2019 to an average of about 90 per year in 2021-22. There was also an upsurge in the states without these laws, from about 79 reported hate crimes per year to 140.

When the data is limited to K-12 campuses, the increase is even more marked. In states that have enacted restrictive laws, there were more than four times the number of anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes on average, per year, in 2021-22 compared with the years 2015-2019 across elementary, middle and high schools.
“Policy sets the tone for real-world experiences [and] discriminatory policy just creates a hostile environment,” said Amy McGehee, a doctoral student at Oklahoma State University who researches LGBTQ health and well-being.
FBI data indicate the most common crimes associated with reported hate crimes at schools include simple assault, intimidation and vandalism.



McGehee added that LGBTQ students were reporting feeling unsafe on both college and K-12 campuses even before states began passing waves of policies restricting their rights at school. A sweeping Washington Post-KFF poll last year found that school is among the greatest stressors for transgender children in particular. Forty-five percent of trans adults said they felt generally unsafe at school as a child or teenager, compared to 10 percent of cisgender adults.
Trans kids crave acceptance at school in a nation that often resists it
The Post’s analysis of FBI data found that the per capita hate crime rates on K-12 and college campuses were higher in the more liberal states that have not enacted laws limiting transgender rights. Although the finding may seem counterintuitive, it actually makes sense, said Stephen Russell, a University of Texas at Austin professor who studies LGBTQ youth. He said LGBTQ youth and families living in those 22 states were probably more likely to report violence and harassment in the first place.
Many of these states have adopted laws and school policies specifically prohibiting bullying of or discrimination against LGBTQ students, he said. In some places, he said, that includes required annual notifications alerting students and parents to their rights and spelling out how they can and should report bad behavior.

“It creates a context where they see themselves, they stand up for themselves, they believe there is a place for them in their schools,” Russell said of LGBTQ children.
In addition, it’s possible more kids are public about their identities in more liberal states, creating more targets for bullies, said Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, who studies social policy and politics.
Both Erickson and Russell were unsurprised to learn that the number of hate crimes had risen faster in states with conservative laws.
“The data you have is the thing I’ve been worrying about, and here it is,” said Russell.

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A bill that would allow state agencies to hire private accountants — and bypass the state auditor’s office — to conduct annual audits is in limbo in the Iowa House.



Senate File 2311, which passed the Senate 31-16 last month, hit a setback Tuesday. A House subcommittee voted 2-1 to advance the bill without recommendation to the full House State Government Committee, leaving it to the chair of the committee to determine the bill’s fate.


Rep. Michael Bergan, R-Dorchester, raised concerns about “additional costs and added inefficiencies” created by the bill.




John McCormally, chief of staff for Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand, highlighted a fiscal note from the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency that found that hiring a private CPA firm could cost up to more than three times as much as using staff from the state auditor’s office. Based on data obtained from audit reports filed with the auditor’s office by private firms, audits of state agencies performed by outside CPA firms have cost as much as $260 per hour compared with $85 per hour by the auditor’s office.


Bergan also noted private CPA audits of state agencies could make it difficult for the state auditor to compile a required annual report on how the state spends federal funds.


Brad Epperly, a lobbyist for the Iowa Society of Certified Public Accountants, said Iowa has a shortage of CPAs to perform governmental audits.


“As of right now, I don't know that we would have the members that would have the ability to do the audits,” Epperly said.





Sand and legislative Democrats say the bill “kneecaps” Sand’s authority as auditor and opens the door to political corruption by allowing government officials to bypass the state auditor for annual audits.


Republican supporters of the bill argue the hiring of a private accountant to conduct a required annual audit already is allowed and widely employed by local governments and school districts.


Rep. Adam Zabner, D-Iowa City, voted in subcommittee not to advance the bill. Zabner said Iowa voters trust Sand and reelected him in 2022 “to come back and be in charge of audits for the state of Iowa.”


“I don't like the idea that the Legislature can circumvent that just because they have issues,” Zabner said. “I think this is another example of the Senate playing politics. We should put people over politics and make sure that our elected officials can do their jobs.”


A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows a majority of Iowans oppose the Republican-led bill that would allow state agencies to outsource their annual audits, circumventing the state auditor — the lone Democrat elected to statewide office in Iowa.

Ethics complaint dismissed​

House lawmakers voted unanimously Tuesday to dismiss an ethics complaint filed by Des Moines-based Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement against Rep. Dean Fisher, R-Montour.


CCI President Barbara Kalbach alleged there was a conflict of interest for Fisher, as founder and board president of the newly created Tama-Toledo Christian School, to campaign on, help pass and vote for legislation signed into law last year that created taxpayer-funded education savings account to help Iowa families pay for private school tuition and expenses.


The complaint states Fisher helped establish and serves as the board president of the Tama-Toledo Christian School, an emerging private school. Kalbach alleged the school plans to use the state-funded accounts to pay the bulk of its operating costs, and that Fisher “discredited Iowa’s General Assembly by abusing his public power for private gain.”


The six-member House Ethics Committee comprised of three Republicans and three Democrats, however, voted unanimously to dismiss the complaint with prejudice. Members stated the complaint did not meet requirements and no further investigation was required.


House rules state members refrain from taking action on bills and committee work that are a conflict of interest due to personal gain beyond that afforded the public or a particular profession, trade, industry group or class of people.


In Fisher’s case, the 2023 law applied to all non-public accredited schools in Iowa and did not solely or primarily benefit Fisher or his immediate family.


Teachers in the Legislature, for example, vote on state spending for schools and pay raises for teachers across the state.


“I am concerned about what the complainant has stated,” said committee member Rep. Monica Kurth, D-Davenport. “It just gives me a bad feeling overall; however, I don’t think it rises to the point of being a violation of the ethics code.”


Fisher, in a response, blasted the complaint as “clearly politically motivated” and claimed he upheld a campaign promise made to his constituents.


“It’s wrong to attempt to use the mechanisms of government to attack someone you simply disagree with on policy,” Fisher said in the statement. “Fortunately, the ethics committee agrees, and this situation has been resolved."


CCI, in a statement, asserted the committee “turned a blind eye to Rep. Dean Fisher’s glaring ethical violations,” and said his actions “are self-dealing and self-serving.”

State: 1,500 tons of fertilizer spilled into Western Iowa river​

An investigation was underway Tuesday after 1,500 tons of fertilizer were released into a Western Iowa river.


The Iowa Department of Natural Resources announced that New Cooperative in Red Oak notified the agency early Monday that tons of liquid nitrogen fertilizer were discharged into a drainage ditch, and they later reached the East Nishnabotna River. The river is a tributary of the Missouri River.


The Iowa DNR says the release occurred due to a valve left open on an aboveground storage tank overnight.


Areas of pooled fertilizer were pumped into a vac truck and will be land applied later. Dead fish were observed in the East Nishnabotna. The extent of the fish kill was still being determined, according to the agency.


Iowa DNR field staff were on-site collecting samples and analyzing them.

Meat substitute product labeling​

Legislation that would require manufacturers to make clear that meat substitute products are plant-based or lab-grown advanced out of the Iowa House’s Agriculture Committee.


Proponents of the bill say it is needed to better help consumers understand what kind of product they are buying, and to protect Iowa’s livestock farmers.


The bill also prohibits Iowa’s public schools, regent universities and community colleges from purchasing lab-grown products and would require the state to apply for a waiver to opt out if the federal government ever approves a lab-grown meat substitute for purchase under federal nutrition assistance programs like SNAP for individuals and families or WIC for expectant mothers.


With its passage out of the committee, the bill, Senate File 2391, meets this week’s legislative funnel deadline and is eligible for consideration by the House.


The House ag committee’s chair, Rep. Mike Sexton, R-Rockwell City, said amendments to the proposal will be proposed during floor debate in the House. He said one proposed amendment is mostly technical, while another would add dairy and egg substitute products to the bill’s requirements.

Control

ed Piper with violating any of the state’s rules or regulations on the practice of medicine, and Piper has no history of any prior disciplinary actions.

Civil case recounts string of messages with patient​

The civil case that was filed by Doe one year ago remains active, with a trial scheduled for November of this year.

President Biden's team is concerned that special counsel Robert Hur's investigationinto Biden's handling of classified documents will hurt his re-election campaign.

Why it matters: Biden aides don't expect criminal charges in the case, but they believe Hur's report will include embarrassing details — possibly with photos — on how Biden stored documents.

• In late 2022, Obama-era classified documents were discovered in Biden's garage at his home in Delaware and in a private office he used.
• Biden aides believe that Donald Trump, Biden's likely foe in November, will try to use Hur's report to create equivalency with the felony charges Trump faces related to his keeping classified documents after his presidency.
• Biden aides believe Hur's probe is done and that his final report could come any time — even as soon as this week — but the final timing is unclear.

Zoom in: Hur, a former U.S. attorney nominated by Trump in 2017 and a former clerk for conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist, is required to write a report about the investigation.

• Last fall, Garland said on "60 Minutes" that he would make public a special counsel's report on Hunter Biden, the president's son, "to the extent permissible under the law" to "explain [the] ... decisions to prosecute or not prosecute, and their strategic decisions along the way."
• He added: "Usually, the special counsels have testified at the end of their reports, and I expect that that will be the case here."
• A Justice Department spokesperson told Axios that Garland is committed to releasing as much as possible of all special counsel reports, pointing to previous comments by Garland.

Even if there are no criminal charges, Biden aides expect the report's details to be politically damaging.

• Biden has defended storing documents from his vice presidency in his garage, saying: "By the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage, so it's not like they're sitting out on the street."
• Any photos of those storage practices could cause a political storm similar to what happened after the release of photos of Trump storing documents at Mar-a-Lago, including in a bathroom.
• Trump, who resisted the U.S. government's efforts to retrieve the documents, faces 40 criminal counts in the case including obstruction of justice and willful retention of national defense information.

Zoom out: Garland's appointment of Hur added to the tension between Biden's team and Garland that's been fueled by Garland's appointment of the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden, feelings that Garland was too slow to investigate Trump over Jan. 6, and other frustrations.

• Anthony Coley, a former senior adviser to Garland, caught the Biden team's attention recently when he wrote that Biden and those in his orbit had no one to blame but themselves for Garland's appointment of a special counsel.

• Coley said Biden's team wasn't initially transparent about the documents and put Garland in a no-win situation.
• "Against the backdrop of former President Trump's indictment on charges of willful and deliberate retention of classified documents, the Biden team's drip, drip, drip of information made the discoveries seem even worse," Coley wrote.
• Other legal experts have argued that Biden's team likely was trying to not speak publicly about an ongoing criminal investigation.

Some in Biden's orbit have unflatteringly compared Garland to former FBI Director James Comey and his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server.

• Comey ultimately cleared Clinton of criminal wrongdoing, but damaged her election campaign against Trump in July 2016 by making a public statement that she had been "extremely careless" in her security protocols.

What they're saying: The White House and a spokesperson for Biden attorney Bob Bauer declined to comment.

For years, contractor Jeremey Lawson took advantage of numerous customers in Iowa and several other Midwest states, defrauding them out of thousands of dollars for jobs he never completed.

But this week, the longtime felon received a stiff prison sentence of 20 years in connection with a crime spree in Bloomfield, where he and another felon burglarized businesses and robbed local Amish while they were in church on a Sunday in March 2023.

Lawson, 48, and alleged accomplice Michael Diedrick II broke into several businesses, including Wagler Metals, Hwy. 2 Discount Groceries, Midwest Truss Co. and KW Welding, as well as two residences. At one of the homes, according to court documents, a boy and two teen girls, one in a wheelchair, hid in a back bedroom as Lawson and Diedrick broke in.



Lawson was sentenced for four felony burglary counts, as well as for being a felon in possession of an offensive firearm, under a plea agreement reached with Davis County prosecutors.

In July, Diedrick was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted on four burglary counts and one of control of an offensive weapon by a felon.


Lawson, who has lived in Bloomfield and nearby Drakesville, could not be reached for comment.

Court records show Lawson has a decades-long, documented history of taking large advances from customers for construction jobs and then walking away.

He's been the subject of news stories since a December 2014 Watchdog probe found that he and his brother, Marvin, had racked up criminal convictions, civil court judgments and allegations of construction fraud and theft in at least four counties in Missouri, four in Illinois and 19 in Iowa, including Polk.


As a contractor, Lawson been a top generator of complaints over the past two decades to the Iowa attorney general's Consumer Protection Division, even though a judge barred him in 2015 from taking further advance payments for any construction jobs. In the case that prompted that ruling, Lawson owed more than $102,000 in restitution tied to 25 victims in connection with court action initiated by a consumer protection lawyer in then-Attorney General Tom Miller's office.

One of the last times Lawson was imprisoned was after his sixth conviction for OWI in 2018. With two sheriff's deputies in pursuit, Lawson sped and drove drunk in Davis County, crashing into a stop sign and plowing into a bridge before flipping his Chevy Silverado, according to a criminal complaint against him. Two of three passengers were taken to the hospital.

For some reason we have never gone through the steps for TSA precheck, which we are doing now. From everyone I talk to, if you fly even once a year, it is completely worth it. Makes we wonder what else I have not been doing which I should have been. Lay it on me oh great and wise HORT.