Thursday Tidbits

Thursday Tidbits

Lots of news yesterday other than Krusty klosing, though you wouldn't know it from my traffic.

Grassley bashes Obama for suggesting that maybe Grassley's constituents should maybe talk to Chuck about the war. Jonathan Singer at MyDD fires back hard:

If there were ever a portrait of someone who has spent too long on Capitol Hill, this might be it. Grassley apparently believes that he owns the Hawkeye state, that no one -- particularly not another Senator -- has the right to organize a grassroots lobbying effort among his constituents.

You have to go back to Grassley's initial run for the Senate against then-incumbent Democrat John Culver to see the Democrats offering him a truly active challenge. No wonder he believes Democrats shouldn't be questioning his actions.

While Grassley may be out of touch with Iowans, he is not so out of touch that he doesn't know the ground is shifting under him. In 2006, Iowa swung noticeably towards the Democrats... This trend could spell real trouble for Grassley, a stalwart Republican who backed President Bush's position 87 percent of the time and stood with his fellow Republicans on party-line votes 93 percent of the time in 2006 (both numbers according to CQ).

As is fairly apparent, Grassley is vulnerable -- and he knows it. This is why he is so offended that a Democrat would come into his state, expose his knee-jerk conservatism and call his constituents into action to lobby him. So kudos to Obama for calling Grassley out.

Gazette covers Tommy Thompson in Anamosa.

On the Iowa City substance front, the neo-prohibitionists say they'll have the signatures tomorrow for the 21 bar referendum. And in a DI article on marijuana arrests, Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek again calls for arrest and sentencing reform:

Pulkrabek has long argued that a cite-and-release program for people caught with small amounts of marijuana could help ease jail overcrowding in Johnson County. He hadn't completely defined what "a small amount" might mean, he said.

But he has faced some obstacles to his catch-and-release proposal, not only from local residents who think the penalty wouldn't be stringent enough but also from regulations in Iowa law.

"The law still holds it as a serious misdemeanor [and as so, offenders] still need to get booked in the jail at some point in time," Pulkrabek said. "I still hold the same opinion, and we are working through the chiefs and the county attorney about developing a cite-and-release program, but there are several unanswered questions."

Pulkrabek said until he and public officials can answer these questions, the program will not move forward.

"Because of the large number of people we're booking in, if there was one more group of people we didn't have to book in that would free us up for other offenses," he said.

Nationally, NBC had the leak and/or scoop on 11 House Republicans who met with W yesterday and called him to task, with the key quotes being 'You have no credibility on Iraq Mr. President.' and 'My district is ready for defeat.' Their video link is unfriendly so here's the Gray Lady instead.

The DI's Jesse Tangkhpanya gives the play of the week to Fred Thompson's coy semi-candidacy. The problem I see for this Thompson Twin is that a non-candidate gets to be all things to all people. But once you actually get into the race, and are no longer an empty vessel filled with whatever issues and actions the public imagines, you become a mere mortal again.