Podcast Segments:
Iowa Coast to Coast (statewide news)
From KCRG: The president of the Iowa Farmer’s Union said proposed changes to the National Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP will hurt Iowa Farmers. The cuts total around $230 billion as part of President Trump’s so-called ‘big beautiful bill.’ Aaron Lehman said farmers are an integral part of SNAP because they’re growing the food people on the program are buying. Lehman said right now farmers are experiencing low commodity prices and a very concentrated atmosphere. That means they only have a few markets to sell into. Lehman said between trade and tariffs and cuts to other programs, many farmers are worried about what’s to come. He added the SNAP program creates a trickle-down effect in communities... helping not only farmers, but also those who rely on the assistance, and even the grocery stores that participate. ”We need a strong nutrition program to help build our local economies and our farmers,” said Lehman. ”You want to have a good partner, a good public partner, whether it’s working on conservation programs or nutrition programs or fresh food programs. Farmers need a good, reliable public partner, and that just hasn’t been the case.”
From Iowa Public Radio: Planned Parenthood North Central States announced it plans to close four clinics in Iowa amid financial challenges. The organization said it will close its clinics in Ames, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City and Urbandale in addition to four of its clinics in Minnesota in the coming year. It will also layoff 66 staff members and offer 37 others reassignments. Planned Parenthood said in a press release that the decision to restructure and close the clinics "comes as patient needs and preferences have changed, the broken aspects of our health care system have intensified, the organization’s Minnesota Title X funds have been frozen, and the U.S. House voted to advance a reconciliation package that defunds Planned Parenthood." “We have been fighting to hold together an unsustainable infrastructure as the landscape shifts around us and an onslaught of attacks continues," Ruth Richardson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, said in a statement. "We know that many of our patients would have nowhere to turn if every Planned Parenthood health center were to disappear from their state. Heart wrenching and hard decisions today will ensure Planned Parenthood is here for years to come."
From Taylor Kohn in Bleeding Heartland: State Auditor Rob Sand, the top elected Democrat in Iowa, announced his run for governor on May 12. With Governor Kim Reynolds not seeking re-election, some see Sand’s candidacy as a chance to win the office away from the GOP. I’m among those who would like to see that happen. Unfortunately, Rob Sand is not offering a real alternative to the party in power. Sand’s favorite message is that he isn’t “partisan,” which means that, despite his Democratic affiliation, he is courting conservative votes. This is evident in his media appearances and campaign materials so far. In his campaign launch video, he doesn’t mention public education, abortion, trans rights, environmental protections, book banning, or other topics that have been important to the Democratic base over the course of Reynolds’s last term. Meanwhile, at least one Iowa media outlet on the left—the podcast Rock Hard Caucus—has reported that Sand has not responded to their agreement to an interview even though the initial request was from Sand’s PR representative themself. As comfortable as Sand is reaching across the aisle, he seems unwilling to face tough questions from, supposedly, his own side of it. And there are tough questions that must be asked if Sand intends to be governor. For example—the largest portion of his funding comes from Nixon Lauridsen, his father-in-law, one of the wealthiest men in Iowa. What does it say about Rob Sand’s overtures toward the right side of the political spectrum that, aside from Sand, Lauridsen donates generously to Republican candidates (including Reynolds and U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra, who has announced his own gubernatorial run)?
Cauc Talk
From the BBC: Elon Musk has criticised one of the signature policies of Donald Trump, marking a break from the US president who he helped to win re-election in 2024. Last week, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed what Trump calls his "big, beautiful" bill, which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a pledge to increase defence spending. It will now head to the Senate. Tech titan Musk told the BBC's US partner CBS News he was "disappointed" by the plan, which he felt "undermines" the work he did for the president on reducing spending. Musk was enlisted as Trump's cost-cutting tsar - ending funds for US foreign aid among other projects - before announcing he would step back. "I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly," Musk said in the interview with CBS Sunday Morning, a clip of which was released by the broadcaster before transmission. He went on to argue that Trump's plan "increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it". Referring to Trump's moniker for the legislation, Musk told CBS: "I think a bill can be big or beautiful. I don't know if it can be both."
Wider Scope
A.Iowa
From Huffington Post: The company behind an Amazon-backed AI model revealed a number of concerning findings from its testing process, including that the AI would blackmail engineers who threatened to shut it down. On Thursday, Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4, an AI model used for complex, long-running coding tasks. The launch came more than a year after Amazon invested $4 billion into the project. Anthropic said in its announcement that the AI model sets “new standards for coding, advanced reasoning, and AI agents.” However, Anthropic revealed in a safety report that during testing, the AI model had sometimes taken “extremely harmful actions” to preserve its own existence when “ethical means” were “not available.” After “multiple rounds of interventions,” the company now believes this issue is “largely mitigated.” Anthropic co-founder and chief scientist Jared Kaplan told Time magazine that internal testing showed that Claude Opus 4 was able to teach people how to produce biological weapons.
Factoid of the Week: In Ancient Egypt, the word for ‘cat’ was actually pronounced ‘mew’, or ‘meow’.
Spencer’s Top 5 90’s Bands
1. Nirvana
2. Korn
3. Deftones
4. Tool
5. Soundgarden
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