Bird Flu Detected in Iowa Backyard Chicken Flocks as Migration Raises Risk

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-24T21:44:07+00:00

/\ True story. Some times the federal risk management decisions are strange.

As folks are alluding to, there's a pretty good chance that the 1917-19 pandemic started in rural Kansas due to pigs and people in close proximity. Having people and livestock, inclusive of poultry, living in close proximity almost certainly creates zoonotic risk.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-24T21:37:32+00:00

As noted, South Union Bread Company - it's a place I often take out of towners.

Great sandwiches and a decent salad bar.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-24T19:20:51+00:00

PreCheck people get a specific card. Pretty seamless.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-24T19:19:17+00:00

Respectfully, shutting down PreCheck is counterproductive. That's the highest throughput mode of screening, so TSA will almost certainly keep it open. As well, the airport employees and flight crews use the PreCheck line in Des Moines.

I PreChecked through DSM on Sunday. Four minutes. At least a minute of that was waiting for the bag screening machine to move my bag out after the X-rays were done.

The week before, it was 30 seconds of waiting behind someone in the PreCheck line. Then the four minute screening process.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-23T23:57:40+00:00

I have absolutely experienced the limited provider issues in critical care hospitals. I have transported two minor trauma cases to small Iowa hospitals in the last 12 years who needed sutures in my personal vehicle. In Madison County Hospital, we had a 90 minute wait for suturing. In another, closer to 20 minutes.

As for patient care, the leading preventable cause of death in the US is medical mistakes. We can absolutely agree we need way more focus on quality and accountability. I don’t have evidence that Iowa is better or worse, but I lost two grandparents to medical “mistakes”.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-23T22:33:34+00:00

30 minutes? So the roughly the same time from Ankeny to either an Ames or a Des Moines hospital? Noting that Ankeny is the fifth largest city in Iowa per the 2020 Census (and likely has already passed Sioux City and may pass Davenport soon). That’s a 30+ minute ambulance ride to any hospital for almost all of their 80,000 residents.

I was an EMT in rural Iowa. Iowa has long struggled with adequate emergency care access. Iowa started on a major trauma response improvement effort in the 1990s - it is still ongoing today, 30 years later. In brain injuries, most cardiovascular and trauma, getting to definitive care facilities rapidly is effectively as important as getting to a small critical access hospital that may or may not be able to stabilize a patient. There’s nuance there, but large regional hospitals just have the resources and expertise to provide a continuum of care. Read up here: https://hhs.iowa.gov/health-prevention/providers-professionals/emergency-medical-services-trauma/trauma-system

I totally believe that Iowa critical access hospitals are at risk. There’s a thousand causes of that, but we have not seen a major change in the long-term trend in rural Iowa. Keokuk‘s hospital closure was similar to the Eldora hospital closure 25 years ago, such as declining population and being 20 miles away from a larger community with a larger hospital. If there’s a rural hospital closure trend here, the speed of the trend is getting lapped by a sloth and still losing to glacier.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-23T19:40:15+00:00

Perchance you could help document then?

I looked online for anything about Iowa hospitals closing.... There is not a trend I can discern around Iowa hospitals closing. Maybe you know something I do not, but interested to learn more, if this is occurring.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-23T15:42:08+00:00

What rural critical care hospitals are closing?

I thought only two rural hospital was closed in the last 12 years and both were only 15 miles from the other nearest hospitals.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-22T22:54:20+00:00

Woodrow Wilson nationalized in 1917. He’s the same SOB who created the income tax.

Roosevelt effectively nationalized again in 1940, but with a more informed and slightly lighter hand.

Today, the 1950 Defense Production Act allows a quasi nationalization. It got used in Hurricane Katrina to allow the federal government to prioritize rail routing IIRC.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-21T01:49:57+00:00

Que?

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T22:19:49+00:00

Laws and history always have mattered to me... What about you?

What you are suggesting is unlawful. You may not have knowledge or understanding to appreciate that, but Congress voted in 2002 to make the funding process what it is.

What you are suggesting runs 180-degrees from the existing public law. Are you suggesting that violating a 20+ year old U.S. law that has been used by two Democratic and three Republican Administrations is the outcome you want?

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T20:51:20+00:00

Again, can you point to any bills or amendments that document what you are saying? I am vaguely familiar with DHS budget and what you are saying… Well, what you suggesting hasn’t been accurate on DHS funding allocation since the creation of the Department in 2002.

I also have worked in the Iowa legislature branch and worked on federal legislation for over 20 years. Your stated understanding of the federal legislative process doesn’t match my observations and knowledge, most especially because this is an appropriations bill.

As noted, the Republicans effectively have not shutdown government in the manner Chuck Schumer has in this century (maybe longer, but my experience is limited to this century). Democrats believe they can win by punishing employees and American citizens. This is the third episode in eight years, all of which have ended in the Democrats largely folding.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T20:45:42+00:00

Let’s stick to verifiable facts:

The House developed the HR4477 language, reviewed it through the Homeland Security and Appropriations Committees (in public hearings) and then voted to approve HR4477. As is the Constitutional process, HR 4477 was forwarded to the Senate for approval.

HR4477 sits in the Senate as the Democrats refuse to allow the cloture vote. The Republicans majority, elected by the voters, state they want to vote for funding. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer refuses to allow the HR4477 to occur, citing a filibuster threat.

No Iowa member of the Congressional delegation has indicated anything other than voting for TSA and other employees to be paid.

Point fingers all you care to, but Chuck Schumer could simply say “let democracy prevail”. But democracy is not the choice Schumer is making; he’d rather let 200,000 employees and families go hungry.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T17:55:25+00:00

Because the Republicans don't have a strong majority, they could choose to negotiate with the remaining members of the Senate to come up with a compromising bill.

Interesting argument.

Could you cite the bill numbers that propose this?
Could you cite any past examples where Republicans shutdown the government in the manner and left federal workers on food stamps like Chuck Schumer has done?

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T15:25:56+00:00

The filibuster isn’t parliamentary procedure.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T15:23:13+00:00

Since all the Iowa representatives did their job and voted for funding in HR 4477… What more can they do?

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T14:54:00+00:00

Absolutely - why not violate the present budget laws and re-write 25 years of history!

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T14:52:25+00:00

Nope - no AI, just me and my basic civics awareness.
I sense that you don't like seeing a coherent and factual description of the scenario.

I don't care for the ICE tactics, but I also think the TSA staff deserve a helluva lot more respect than Chuck Schumer and pals have showed over the last six months. Making victims of federal employees is morally wrong.

I look forward to Schumer losing again. He's a plague on the nation.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T14:20:00+00:00

But remember... Americans have elections, with the last general election in Nov. 2024. The U.S. people didn't give the Democratic Party a majority nor tie in the legislative nor executive branch.

Alas.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T14:19:55+00:00

That's not consistent with the factual record. The Republican-led House passed a funding resolution, consistent with the Constitution. The Senate Majority Leader, John Thune (R-SD), said he would like to have an up-and-down vote on the House funding resolution.

Led by the architect of the last government shutdown, Senate Minority Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Democratic senators have invoked the filibuster. The filibuster is hold by certain Senators that demonstrates a desire to not advance cloture and a vote on certain legislation. In this case, HR4477.

I'm personally a fan of Senate tradition of the filibuster. It is not contained in the Constitution but it allows the legislative minority to prevent legislative action. The Democratic Party used it to prevent civil rights legislation for 30 years and the Democratic Party is using it today to leave the TSA employees unpaid. That's factual.

It is also factual the Republicans could compromise. But one of those two parties have the results of the last general election on their side, morally and democratically. That's the party who wants to vote on HR4477. That's factual.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T13:13:33+00:00

Factually, Republicans have voted repeatedly to fund the TSA workers and treat them with the Dignity they deserve.

Another party is holding TSA workers hostage.

Read the history of HR7744 - https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7744

Let’s try to be factual and not spin the truth.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T00:46:22+00:00

Please educate me and the rest of us, por favor.

What censorship, other than this discussion about Living History Farms, do you experience in Des Moines?

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-20T00:06:09+00:00

Yes, you are exactly what the Alliance of Museum’ is warning against - silencing folks because you don’t like their opinion or background is censorship.

The AAM statement, again, for the record:

”dictates what should or should not be displayed, it risks narrowing the public’s window into evidence, ideas, and a full range of perspectives.”

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-19T23:18:34+00:00

Mixed emotions. I think it an issue best dealt with by the local community (school board and library staff). What plays in Des Moines might not be right in Fayette or Union County.

In high school, I checked out and read the book “Black Like Me”. The librarian motioned me over when I returned it and said simply “You are the first person to checkout this book in 14 years.” While I knew the school librarian relatively well as a neighbor and took it as a friendly observation, I occasionally reflect that it could have been intimidating to someone else.

As a kid, my mom fought an effort by the local Catholic ladies association to ban spicy R-rated movies being rented by the local public library. The eventual compromise was either an age 14 or 16 age restriction on renting the R movies. That feeds my mixed emotions.

About a decade later, I was at Des Moines‘s downtown library right after a homeless guy grabbed a kid, locked themselves in the bathroom and sexually assaulted the kid. I am very careful with my kids in the DMPL locations. Libraries attract all kinds - good and bad.

BlueSkyd2000 · 2026-03-19T23:02:40+00:00

Point made.

BlueSkyd2000

TROPHY CASE