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Gannett paper. Link only: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/kyle-munson/2015/06/04/senator-chuck-grassley-twitter-social-media-boot-camp-iowa/28461121/

Rick Perry, who launched his presidential campaign on Thursday, has scored an endorsement from one of the most prominent conservatives in Iowa. Sam Clovis, a talk radio personality, professor and former U.S. Senate candidate, said in an interview late Thursday that he has signed on as Perry's Iowa state chairman and will campaign Friday with the former Texas governor when he visits Iowa.

DES MOINES, Iowa - Senator Joni Ernst’s Jobs, Opportunity, and New Ideas PAC announced that elected leaders from across the state will join declared and potential presidential candidates at the Roast and Ride event to be held at the Central Iowa Expo in Boone on June 6th. Newly confirmed speakers include Governor Terry Branstad, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds, Senator Chuck Grassley, Congressmen Steve King and Congressman David Young. Previously, Ernst announced that Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker would be speaking at the event as well. Prior to the roast, Ernst...

RUSH: The rally that Bernie Sanders had in Iowa's got everybody nonplussed. Nobody can figure it out. I have. I know exactly why the left is going nuts over Bernie Sanders. For one thing, sex scandals are resume enhancements for the Democrat Party. They always have been and Bernie's got a little bit of a sex scandal going with that memo, his Fifty Shades of Grey impersonation that he did, his ruminations about what men are doing when they're doing other things and what women secretly want when men are doing it to them. That kind of stuff enhances Democrats....

As the accolades and attaboys come in for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) standing up against the continuation of NSA surveillance, we would do well to remember that this is a man who believes the GOP created ISIS. While many candidates are saying that “knowing what they know now” they wouldn’t have supported the Iraq War, Paul went a step further and basically gave an updated version of his father’s view of 9/11; a view which received gasps and boos from the audience when Ron Paul espoused it during the 2007 Republican primary debates. Those gasps have turned into agreement and...

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN)Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker holds a 7-point advantage among Iowan voters over the rest of the crowded Republican field in the scramble for the party's 2016 nomination for president, a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll finds...Walker has not declared his candidacy,...Paul and Carson were tied for second place with 10% of the vote...Florida Sen. Marco Rubio finished tied for sixth place with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum,...

DES MOINES — A mere 240 people live in the rural northeast Iowa town of Kensett, so when more than 300 crowded into the community center on Saturday night to hear Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, many driving 50 miles, the cellphones of Democratic leaders statewide began to buzz. Kurt Meyer, the county party chairman who organized the event, sent a text message to Troy Price, the Iowa political director for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Price called back immediately. “Objects in your rearview mirror are closer than they appear,” Mr. Meyer said he had told Mr. Price about Mr. Sanders....

DES MOINES, Iowa — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker holds a 7-point advantage among Iowan voters over the rest of the crowded Republican field in the scramble for the party’s 2016 nomination for president, a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll finds. The poll, released late Saturday afternoon, shows Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee rounding out the top five in the state, which, as the first-in-the-nation caucus, is a critical battleground for presidential hopefuls. Walker captured 17% of the vote among likely GOP caucus-goers. He first gained...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker hasn’t let up in Iowa, a new poll from the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg shows. Walker gets the support of 17 percent in the crowded Republican field. Following him are Ben Carson and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) with 10 percent each. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are next at 9 percent each. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum, who won the 2012 Iowa caucuses, come in at 6 percent each. Outspoken Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) remains at five percent, the same level as in January.

Wisconsin Governor and likely GOP presidential candidate Scott Walker joined the Howie Carr radio show on Friday to praise GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina and knock a recent Washington Times story. A columnist for the Boston Herald and talk radio host, Carr took to Twitter posting quotes during his interview with Walker. His first tweet read, “@ScottWalker tells me WashTimes story is inaccurate. He will not be skipping Iowa. IAPolitics “We play to win.””

Sen. Marco Rubio will not participate in the Iowa Straw Poll, his campaign team confirmed Saturday. The Florida senator and 2016 hopeful’s decision marks the latest blow to the August event long considered a staple on the Republican road to the presidential nomination. Jeb Bush, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Mike Huckabee have all said they won’t participate this cycle. Many, including Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Rand Paul, have yet to signal if they will attend.

Judge orders Clinton Foundation racketeering case to trial BY SARAH WESTWOOD | MAY 29, 2015 | 7:39 PM A Florida judge has set a trial date in the racketeering case against the Clinton Foundation and Bill and Hillary Clinton. Judge Donald Middlebrooks of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ordered the racketeering, influenced and corrupt organizations, or RICO, case to head to trial January 20, 2016. The order, entered Friday and obtained by the Washington Examiner, came days after Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch filed a lengthy civil complaint against the Clintons and their foundation in...

Nobody screws up a one-car funeral, or kills the goose that lays the golden egg, quite like the Republican Party establishment. Such is the plight of a political party lead by people who don’t share the same basic values as its base. This puts the GOP in a constant state of inner turmoil. For example, just six months after a historic midterm election victory only 23 percent of Republicans believe their party’s leaders have kept their campaign promises, according to a new Pew Research poll. At the epicenter of this dysfunctional family lies my native state of Iowa: Home to...

At the link is a very cool slide show of pictures from the funeral of Officer Kerrie Orozco from yesterday. http://odc.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=5002&p=5978

Finally!The economy sucks, the Islamic State now controls half of Syria and is poised to do the same in Iraq, our allies are losing faith in this country, and the media are acting as if gay marriage and a 14-year-old decision made by the previous president are the two most important issues facing the country.Senator Ted Cruz says he’s had enough, at least when it comes to questions about gay unions. Coming out of a meeting with Beaumont Texas officials, the candidate for the GOP presidential nomination stopped to take some questions from the press.After getting questions about his views...

DES MOINES — While many Iowans scatter to the coasts, mountains and “Up North” in summer, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is hearing from a lot of people who want to spend the next few months here. Hillary for Iowa, the 2016 presidential hopeful’s campaign in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, reports receiving applications from more than 1,000 people who want to be Clinton fellows in Iowa this summer. Interviews are underway for the Hillary for Iowa Organizing Fellowship program, which will give those selected the opportunity to learn organizing strategies as full-time volunteers on the former secretary of state’s Iowa caucus...

Back in 2009, when Congress was debating the Affordable Care Act, many liberal Democrats felt it did not go far enough — that it should be even more sweeping, even more expansive, even more costly. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, one of the Senate's most liberal Democrats and a veteran of many legislative battles, urged his colleagues on the Left to go ahead and pass the bill. "The key to this is that this modest home, we can put additions onto it in the future," Harkin told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in December 2009. "But if we don't have the starter home, we're...

Marion Mitchell Morrison (born Marion Robert Morrison; May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer.[1] An Academy Award-winner, Wayne was among the top box office draws for three decades. [2][3] An enduring American icon, he epitomized rugged masculinity and is famous for his demeanor, including his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height. Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa but his family relocated to the greater Los Angeles area when he was four years old. He found work at local film studios when he lost his...

During the 2010 campaign for governor, Scott Walker promised to create 250,000 jobs in his first term. Toward this end, one of his first acts as governor was to privatize the state's economic development agency. Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) opened its doors in July 2011. After a series of damning audits, which highlighted mismanagement and incompetence, and news reports of special treatment for Walker donors, on Monday Democratic state lawmakers called for a federal investigation of the scandal-plagued entity. Walker is the Chairman of the Board When walker created WEDC in 2011, he named himself Chairman of the Board....

In what is apparently a vogue of Republican state legislators exercising misplaced vendettas against college professors, Iowa Sen. Mark Chelgren recently made headlines when he introduced Senate File 64, “an Act relating to the teaching effectiveness and employment of professors” at Iowa public institutions. Each year, the bill stipulates, any faculty who fails “to attain a minimum threshold of performance” based solely on student evaluations would be automatically fired regardless of rank or tenure. Lest you think that firing professors based on a questionable assessment metric affords them too much dignity, rest assured there is more. Some beleaguered governing body...