Amie Rivers

In a text analysis of the discussions during the event, Reynen said the word “sheep” was said 27 times, “conservative” and truncated versions of it were said 76 times, and “liberal” and its truncated forms were said 46 times, but terms including “student assessment,” “student objectives,” “learning objectives” and “learning goals” were mentioned zero times. “I hope it is clear that we can see that the Center for Intellectual Freedom is not an academic pursuit,” Reynen said. “It is a political and conservatively political pursuit, and I hope you’re all ashamed of yourselves for it.”

Faculty love the UI and their students, Metcalf said, and she and others believe in students as thinkers, creators and people. However, what she heard from people during the event were threats of a “woke mind virus,” and she believes the center is behind in building trust with students, leading to low enrollment in the center’s courses. “I listened, I talked, I had fascinating conversations. I met people with perspectives I hadn’t yet considered. But unfortunately, I was struck by a couple of things,” Metcalf said. “One was the remarkable lack of intellectual diversity among the panelists, at least, I can’t speak to who was in the room. Secondly … there seemed to be, I hesitate to say an overt hostility, but a deep misapprehension about what it is that I and my colleagues do every day when we come to teach here.” She added that faculty members who also attended the events felt afterward that they were hearing Fox News talking points rather than “rigorous academic discussion.” Metcalf said she hopes and expects that “we can do better,” and she welcomed the board to come to her classes and experience what she does.

first event wasn't even advertised and apparently did not go well: "I hope it is clear that we can see that the Center for Intellectual Freedom is not an academic pursuit."

still no classes three months into the semester. iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/02/25/u...

This is not good.

PELICAN DELAY IN SANTA BARBARA

Coady is from West Des Moines, per @zachwahls.bsky.social

'Follow the money': Maddow’s INSTANT REACTION to U.S. striking Iran YouTube video by MS NOW

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiNs...

“There’s Another Way”: Rent Relief, Love Letters, and 1,000 Pee Funnels "There’s nothing like getting to give someone their rent money," says mutual aid organizer Ashley Fairbanks.

I talked with @ziibiing.com about Stand With Minnesota, keeping neighbors housed during ICE escalation, and directing generosity where it’s actually needed.

Register for the Livestream

I'm moderating a panel at the #MomsPlasticsSummit next Wednesday, March 4, 9:30am-noon!

Tune in to the livestream to catch my discussion with Dr. Ray Dorsey, Dr. Jasmine McDonald & @CleanAirMoms.org Cynthia Palmer on the exposures and impacts of petrochemicals: app.sosha.ai/s/kuk8zHWG

These are “low enrollment” majors but the classes are regularly at capacity. They changed the funding structure a few years ago here, switching the allocation from course enrollments to majors then blamed these departments for a structural, top-down change. This is entirely a political choice.

My guest, Aliya Rahman, stood up silently in the gallery during the president’s speech for a short period of time, part of which other guests were also standing. For that, she was forcibly removed, despite warning officers about her injured shoulders and ultimately charged with ‘Unlawful Conduct. 🧵

Sen. Dave Rowley, R-Spirit Lake, said he has been diagnosed with tonsil cancer and will be undergoing treatment over the next several weeks. Rowley said tonsil cancer “is treatable and curable” and he’ll “be fighting this with everything I have.” Rowley expects to be back at work in the Statehouse later this spring and has filed the paperwork to run for reelection in November. Sen. Jack Whitver, R-Ankeny, has been undergoing treatment for a brain tumor since 2024 and just last month Sen. Catelin Drey, D-Sioux City, announced she’s undergoing treatment for stage one uterine cancer. Drey was elected last fall and filled a vacancy in the Senate created when Sen. Rocky DeWitt, R-Lawton, died of pancreatic cancer in June.

maybe we should do something about cancer? www.iowapublicradio.org/live-updates...

Special education teacher Breanna Oxley speaks during the June 4, 2025, groundbreaking ceremony for the new Freshman Academy at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids. Up to seven teachers could be cut from the Washington staff as the district looks to trim $12.7 million in expenses from its 2026-27 budget. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette)

School leaders, however, say initial staffing allocations — based on each building’s enrollment — could change. https://www.thegazette.com/k/cedar-rapids-schools-to-cut-teachers-based-on-enrollment/ 

More snow: When flakes fly again Wednesday and how much is possible Snow is back in Iowa for the middle of this week.

More snow: When flakes fly again Wednesday and how much is possible

Aliya Rahman, woman who was dragged out of car by ICE in Minneapolis: "I've spent the last month learning the names of the tendons in my shoulder, because both of my shoulders are torn -- cartilage and tendons. But what I haven't learned is the names of the people who did this to me."

Mia Valentina Paz Faria A 7-year-old from Venezuela who was living in Austin, Texas Detained for 70 days “I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.”

UPDATE: Staff at the ICE concentration camp in Dilley, Texas have begun raiding the dormitories of kids and their parents to confiscate and destroy letters from the children. This is in response to the ace reporting by @micarosenberg et al for ProPublica:

“I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.”

- 7 year old imprisoned by ICE for 70 days in a concentration camp in Texas.

Today, after @propublica.org published this story, the camp was raided to confiscate letters from the children.

www.propublica.org/article/ice-...

he's just gonna starve the blue states on any flimsy pretext

under questioning by Rand Paul, ICE officials confirm that yelling at officers is not assault and recording officers is not a crime

But in the committee meeting, a major new component was added to the legislation through an amendment, which Rep. Henry Stone, R-Forest City, categorized as related to “teacher and administrator led student protests.” The language, not yet available online, includes a provision stating a school board must extend the school calendar for a district by one day for each day that a student protest occurs at any attendance center in the school district.

it's gotten worse iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/02/11/b...

"Good riddance."
"One less fascist."
"He deserved it."

Iowa's new Don't Be Mean to Charlie Kirk bill would strip teachers' licenses for saying any of those things "in any medium accessible to students."

They even try to exempt it from the First Amendment lmao www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/...

Read the letters referenced by Rep. James Walkinshaw here:

‘I almost died trying to get an abortion in Iowa’—a mother of 4 speaks out This Iowa mother of four was heartbroken when her fetus received a fatal diagnosis. Then the pregnancy threatened her life, too.

Appreciate that Jess Djukanovic is speaking out about what she went through trying to get an abortion with a non-viable pregnancy in Iowa:

iowastartingline.com/2026/02/04/i...

Trump administration removes Rainbow Flag from Stonewall National Monument The Trump administration removed a large Rainbow Flag from a flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument, the National Park Service confirmed to Gay City News

They have now removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall Inn.

Erasure. Just like the Nazis.

gaycitynews.com/trump-rainbo...

The U.S. Has Killed More than 100 People in Boat Strikes. We’re Tracking Them All. The Intercept is keeping count of all publicly declared U.S. attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean and the number of civilians killed.

The U.S. conducted more extrajudicial killings in the Eastern Pacific today

We’re tracking the civilian toll @theintercept.com

theintercept.com/2025/11/17/t...

Dr. Mehmet Oz urges public to take the measles vaccine as U.S. cases rise “Take the vaccine, please,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator. “We have a solution for our problem.”

"Take the vaccine, please," Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator whose boss has raised suspicion about the safety and importance of vaccines, said of the measles vaccine. "We have a solution for our problem." https://to.pbs.org/4rYdvkn

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.

Hundreds of kids are still detained.

We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

There is power in a union!

Just a quick update from the Twin Cities. (Please forgive the unsolicited message). THINGS ARE NOT BETTER IN MINNEAPOLIS. The media is mostly moving on, Trump is focused on other stuff, BUT NOTHING HAS CHANGED ON THE GROUND. More than 2,000 DHS thugs continue to roam the streets, abducting people 24/7, assaulting legal observers with impunity, and routinely denying 1st, 4th, and 5th amendment rights. Drones and helicopters are overhead every day. Hundreds and hundreds of terrified families have not left their homes since mid-December ... relying on the community to bring them food and help with rent and other necessities. (Those people are NOT violent drug cartel sex offending murderers, as DHS would tell you. Most are legal residents or citizens.) If anything, things have just become more stressful and intractable (think trench warfare as a suitable metaphor): The resistance is better organized and numerous, but DHS has become more clever and better at disguise... and the county sheriff's office is increasingly supporting them . Do not let anyone tell you that Homans (the new person in charge of the occupation) is making anything better. Do not let anyone tell you that 700 ICE agents leaving the city has made much of a difference; the remaining force (again, ~2,000) is still larger than the entire city's police force (which is legally unable to do anything). Please call your congressional reps ... especially if there is any chance the administration might listen to them.

A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation:

WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED.

Thank you, @donlemonofficial.bsky.social, for your courage in the face of censorship, and for joining us in NYC as our special opening guest.

HRC is proud to stand with you, and will always defend a free press.

Trump: I’m the least racist president you’ve had in a long time as far as I’m concerned.

oh my goodness

So much of ICE and CBP’s violence is just them doing the violence — no even pretense that they’re under threat or that force is justified. They’re using pepper spray and tear gas to express annoyance.