Podcast Segments:
Iowa Coast to Coast (statewide news)
Guest JJ Johnson of Washington for Justice - From the Southeast Iowa Union: A handful of local advocacy groups are asking the Washington County Board of Supervisors to draft and vote on a resolution declaring the community’s civil rights standards, after state legislators removed the term “gender identity” from Iowa’s list of protected classes earlier this year in a bill titled Senate File 418. The movement began with a request from Richmond resident JJ Johnson in March. While Johnson’s been permitted a public comment on the matter at one board meeting, it’s otherwise gone largely undiscussed by county supervisors.
From KCRG-TV: The family of a West Liberty man said their son was wrongfully detained by ICE agents. On Tuesday night, family, friends, and loved ones held a prayer vigil at the Muscatine County Jail, where 20-year-old Pascual Pedro was being held. According to Pedro’s family, he had attended an annual ICE meeting where he was detained. Pedro came to West Liberty with his father 7 years ago at the age of 12 from his home country of Guatemala. Pedro played on the soccer team and graduated from high school in West Liberty. According to his Godfather, Father Guillermo Travino Jr., it was just understood that if he attended the annual ICE meetings in Cedar Rapids, he was allowed to stay for another year, but that wasn’t the case during Tuesday morning’s meeting where they said he was detained and brought to the Muscatine County Jail. Travino Jr. said Pedro’s immigration status was unclear to him. “He came with his dad 7 years ago, and they would have annual check-ins, which is what his grandpa was a check-in, and he’s free to go for another year. Unfortunately for Pascual, he was detained,” said Travino Jr. Trevino Jr. said he does plan on coming back to jail on Wednesday to try and visit Pedro.
Cauc Talk (political news)
From PBS: Senate Republicans hauled President Donald Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill to passage Tuesday on the narrowest of votes, pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session. “The big not so beautiful bill has passed,” Paul said after the vote. The difficulty it took for Republicans, who have the majority hold in Congress, to wrestle the bill to this point is not expected to let up. The package now goes back to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson had warned senators not to deviate too far from what his chamber had already approved. But the Senate did make changes, particularly to Medicaid, risking more problems as they race to finish by Trump’s Fourth of July deadline. All told, the Senate bill includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, according to the latest CBO analysis, making permanent Trump’s 2017 rates, which would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act, while adding the new ones he campaigned on, including no taxes on tips. The Senate package would roll back billions of dollars in green energy tax credits, which Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide. It would impose $1.2 trillion in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by imposing work requirements on able-bodied people, including some parents and older Americans, making sign-up eligibility more stringent and changing federal reimbursements to states.
From NPR: The Trump administration has, for the first time ever, built a searchable national citizenship data system. The tool, which is being rolled out in phases, is designed to be used by state and local election officials to give them an easier way to ensure only citizens are voting. But it was developed rapidly without a public process, and some of those officials are already worrying about what else it could be used for. NPR is the first news organization to report the details of the new system. For decades, voting officials have noted that there was no national citizenship list to compare their state lists to, so to verify citizenship for their voters, they either needed to ask people to provide a birth certificate or a passport — something that could disenfranchise millions — or use a complex patchwork of disparate data sources. Legal experts told NPR they were alarmed that a development of this magnitude was already underway without a transparent and public process. "That is a debate that needs to play out in a public setting," said John Davisson, the director of litigation at the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. "It's one that deserves public scrutiny and sunlight, that deserves the participation of elected representatives, that deserves opportunities for the public to weigh in through public comment and testimony."
Wider Scope
From the AP: In a case seen as a challenge to free speech, Paramount has agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump over the editing of CBS' “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris in October. Paramount told media outlets the money will go to Trump’s future presidential library, not to the president himself. It said the settlement did not involve an apology. Trump’s lawyer said the president had suffered “mental anguish” over the editing of the interview by CBS News, while Paramount and CBS rejected his contention that it was edited to enhance how Harris sounded. They had sought to get Trump's lawsuit dismissed. There was no immediate word from the White House about the settlement of the case, which Trump filed in Amarillo, Texas. Paramount and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone were seeking the settlement with Trump, whose administration must approve the company’s proposed merger with Skydance Media. CBS News President and CEO Wendy McMahon and “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens, who both opposed a settlement, have resigned in recent weeks.
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