The Week In Review: August 12-18

The State fair led off the week with a bloody Butter Cow and ended up with Scott Brown, so from bad to worse.  But in between Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar stepped just far enough over our northern border to get CSPAN interested.

Contrary to rumor I was NOT at the Republican fundraiser Friday. That was an imposter. But there IS some news from the Local GOP: Tiffin's Royce Phillips pre-announced his candidacy for open Senate District 39 Friday. Formal events are planned for 8/26 in Sigourney, Washington and North Liberty. Congrats to a stand-up guy and good luck but not TOO much good luck (offer expires June 3, 2014). I'm willing to endorse Royce's primary opponents if it helps.

Other legislative races:

• Looked like a smooth Republican transition in House 18: Nancy Boettger announced her Senate 9 retirement, Rep. Jason Schultz promptly announced for Senate, and Holt simultaneously announced for the House seat. But there will be a primary; Dillon Malone of Dow City, who's 21 and clerked last session, is in.
• There's now a THIRD candidate in open House 91, where Mark Lofgren is leaving to challenge Dave Loebsack. Mark Cisneros announced this week, joining Mark LeRette and Emily (daighter of) Lofgren. Two Marks and a Lofgren. That's going to cause a little confusion, mind if we call you Bruce? It also increases the odds of Emily Lofgren not getting through the primary, which would be a serious ding for Dad going into the congressional race.
• Democrat Liz Bennett is in for open House District 65 in Cedar Rapids, the Tyler Olson seat.

Tweet Of The Month:

Yes, we will be @seattlehempfest .But we'll be giving out @Doritos & #Marijwhatnow literature. Please make a note of it. See you Saturday!
— Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) August 14, 2013

The Read Of The Week (Over 140 Character Division) comes from ThinkProgress:

We progressives can talk about global warming as much as we want as long as we don’t propose anything that might actually solve the problem in a timely fashion. In this view, any climate proposal other than long-long-long-term research and development is automatically just a big government power grab.

That’s it. That is the logic behind the pervasive view on climate change on the right: We don’t like the solutions to this problem, so we officially declare this not to be a problem. 

Because housing jobs & health care would make too much sense, the Iowa City Council is working on a new anti-homeless ordinance. Can't let human misery get in the way of selling diamonds on the Ped Mall, can we.