Poll Positions and La Bonita Cantina

This week at Sunnyside Troy covers the results from last week's elections in Iowa primaries, gives you his take on them, reveals some dark-money PAC folks, complains about someone stealing his dog raft, and shares a story about Johnny Cash singing "A Boy Named Sue" at La Bonita Cantina....

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello friends and neighbors and welcome to Sunnyside. It's another Monday, the 8th of June, 2026, and it is time to give you the full report on what's going on here at Sunnyside and what has happened in the last week. As I've had the opportunity to put it all together for you. First of all, I've got to jump back to State Track, okay? I've got to tell you a story that I think is worth making you aware of. But I'm going to save that for the end of the show. So stick around because I think you're going to love this. It's a little bit of Johnny Cash, a little bit of Mexican cantina food, and a funny story about a song that maybe didn't go as well as I thought it would. In the meantime, I have to say that the pond, the sunny side hollow, the pasture, all of that stuff is developing quite well. We've planted a couple of dozen trees and lots of fruits and crab apples, and it's just going to look beautiful. And we're looking forward to transforming Sunnyside Hollow into a special place for our animals to grow and to eat and enjoy their life while they have it. And of course, a place for us and our family and our friends to be able to enjoy as well. But we have a nice pond down there. And my wife, she has got it in her head. She's an internet warrior, like she is one of the greatest internet purchasers of all time. And if there's something that you think that you may if you just think it, you don't even just say it, but if you think it, um, she will just pick up on it. She'll pick up on the radio waves or whatever it is, the brain waves, and she will be on the internet and finding uh that thing that we need to purchase. And one of the things that she thought that we needed to have was a dog um raft. Okay, so our dog Knox, who I've talked about on this program before, a German shepherd who is a little naughty, not very disciplined, wasn't trained properly by yours truly, uh, turns out that we discovered he loves to swim. Knox loves to swim. You would think he was a Labrador or something like that, but he's a purebred German shepherd, and he jumps into the water and he swims. And when we go kayaking, he likes to swim along with us. He prefers, as a shepherd does, to kind of stay in front of us. He does not like it when we pass him. That makes him very nervous. One of the things that we did buy for him was a life jacket, mostly just because he will not stop swimming. And if we're out there in the kayaks, he just insists on being out there with us, and uh, we just don't know how long he could keep that up, and it makes us very nervous. So uh we got him a big dog uh life jacket, and he loves to wear that, and it he discovered that it does make his swimming a lot easier, so he can swim for a lot longer, and we're not worried about him going under, which is uh a good thing. You know, when you even if you don't always love uh you don't always like your dog, you still love him and you don't want anything bad to happen to him, and so he does wear his little life jacket and he loves to swim around that four-acre pond, and um he just just man, he just loves being in the water, and he's in there a couple of times a day, he just has to go in. He is not a good fishing buddy because he thinks that whatever I'm throwing into the water is fetch, and so he wants to go get that, and of course it has a hook on it, so that's a problem. Uh, we have to distract him with other things. Uh, it's a little easier to fish out of the kayak, for example, because he's busy swimming around and staying afloat, but he'll still try to go after it, and that is very frustrating. And so then when you pull the uh, you know, pull the line in and reel it in and bring it up to the shore, whatever you happen to be, and you pull it out, he wants to run up the shore and jump way high in the air and try to grab it. It's so irritating. It's almost like if you want to go fishing, you can't take Knox with you. I don't know what he's thinking. Then when you do catch a fish, which is quite often, um, then he's going to want to take the fish. Um and he's not aggressive about it, but he definitely wants to at least see what it's all about. And so I have to get it off the hook, and then I show it to him, and then he'll lick it and then I put it back in the water. And that's how that goes with him. But uh Heidi decided that she also needed a we needed a dog raft, which is an inflatable, kind of a hard top inflatable thing, uh, maybe three by four, uh, something like that. And uh you you you you blow it up, um, the dog can sit on it, uh, a person could sit on it, probably. Uh, and it's got like uh it's kind of shaped like a horseshoe, and in the middle of the open uh leg part there, there's like a net that the dog can, if they're swimming, they can crawl up on and uh take a break and just float around. And then you've got a tow rope, and you can tow the the dog around with your kayak if you want to. Knox doesn't want to, he's not interested in it at all, which was a great disappointment to Heidi. She was so excited about it, she couldn't wait. It came, she she spent all she almost passed out from blowing it up. Uh and and uh we got it all blown up and everything like that. Very nice. We took it out there, brought Knox out, and uh he was just not interested. He did not get it, he did not want to be on it, he did not want to climb onto it when he was swimming. We pulled it around on the kayak thinking maybe he'll he'll he'll climb up on it. He did not, so it was never used by Knox, and now it cannot be used by Knox because it has been stolen. The problem is when you buy something that has been in the county for property for decades, uh, and people have come down there to fish and trespass against the county. Now they're trespassing against us on private property. Um we do allow our friends and friends' kids to go down there fishing. They'd have permission from us. Uh we leave the kayaks sometimes down there, and that lets the boys go out and and uh and and and fish from the kayaks and all of that good stuff. But some lunatic, not one of our friends, um, but somebody took uh the dog float. Somebody stole the dog raft. Knox does not care, by the way. He doesn't miss it at all. But Heidi is very upset about the whole thing. She posted it on Facebook and uh was just wanting to, you know, somebody could just no questions asked, just bring it back. And then I was down there the next uh day and I noticed that uh one of our one of our um uh paddles for the kayaks had been taken too. I assume it was taken at the same time. So somebody had gone down there, maybe floated around, maybe mistakenly assumed that it was not a dog raft, um, because why would you? Um who would have that? We do, we do, we no longer do, but we did. And um they took that with them, and uh they must have been floating around for a while down there, maybe probably used a kayak paddle, and they just took they just took the paddle and the and the the the uh the dog raft and it was stolen, and that is extremely frustrating. Uh and so um, but what you know, um necessity is the mother of invention, and fortunately we've got some great inventors out there that have uh uh made some great trail cams, and so now the entire place is under surveillance, which we probably should have done quite a while ago. Um, but um, yeah, so it's uh it's surveilled with notifications to both of our phones. So uh we're hoping that uh that will cease and uh eventually, of course, we'll have it all fenced in anyway, and you'll have to have permission to get there. But man, what a frustrating situation that was for us. Knox was not frustrated at all. He's happy that he's got his little his little uh uh doggy life jacket, he'll put that on and he'll swim around, and he's just happy as you can be. Never even missed that that uh raft that was stolen from Sunnyside Hollow. But that's been the big the big crime, the big crumb, the big Yellowstone issue out here right now. We got some thieves and they're stealing dog rafts. Because why not? So if you see somebody that has a fairly new dog raft and you're thinking, where did you get that from with a paddle? Uh it could be mine. Um so we'll see. We'll we'll see if anything uh happens up. But let's talk a little bit about um what happened last week. Last week's show we had Stacey Bess on Besh on. She was running for uh uh a state senate seat in the District 5, uh, which is my area up here. We'd had her on a couple of times or back in the fall, and then we had uh once in the fall, and then once again uh just last week, uh just before the primary to kind of get the vote out uh and and uh help her get elected. And uh obviously, you know, that didn't go the way um that uh we wanted to. I'll give you the update on actually all of the things that I think happened in the state of Iowa last year, last week on Tuesday in the primary, and we're gonna go into that right now. I'll come back to Stacy Besch in just a moment to kind of explain some more things of what I think actually happened there. But my my my um my um my take on things is that Iowans and probably Americans in general, Republicans specifically, but apparently Democrats as well, they do the best when it comes to their voting principles when it in primary elections, especially when the contests are uncontested. That's when they make the the the choices that they can be solid and confident in. Otherwise, most of the time they just don't know what they're doing. A lot of the times they make the wrong choice, but that's not always the case. So if there's more than one candidate seeking the same office, it rarely works out what I think is the correct way, but uh sometimes it does, and I think it did happen at least uh once or twice this time as we went to the primaries, but most of the time, when there was more than one candidate, the Republicans just got it wrong again, and maybe some of the Democrats did too. So we'll start out with the federal offices, just in case you aren't tracking what's going on in Iowa. Ashley Henson, who is a representative in Congress, the United States Congress, beat out Jim Carlin for the U.S. Senator spot, which is to replace Joni Ernst, who's vacating that uh this year. She uh won that uh primary by 100,000 votes. Very handily, Ashley Henson beat Jim Carlin. Um we'll see though if that is the right choice or not. I'm not convinced entirely. I did vote for Ashley Henson, um, but there is a risk that Ashley could be just Joni Ernst 2.0. And I was a supporter of Joni when she uh was in the primaries and starting her election many years ago, knowing her from the National Guard uh and uh her her role as a colonel in the National Guard and kind of knowing her from that, I was uh supportive of her and then kind of became very milked and not what I expected uh at the end, and now she's not running anyway. So it's a possible situation where here's Ashley, who's been out in Congress for a while. Uh she's now uh going to be running for Senate. She won the primary uh to take uh Joni Ernst spot. So we'll see what happens there if she turns out to be Joni 2.0, which we don't need. She will be running against Democrat Josh Turek. Uh so you know this is terrible. Uh pardon the pun. Ashley will be running against Democrat Josh Turek, who rolled the victory over his primary opponent, Zach Walds, with a 62 to 37% majority. You can dig into the details on why that's a pun. Marionette Miller Meeks, also known as 3M. I don't know if that's true or not. She may not be known as 3M, but she should be. Marionette Miller Meeks, aka 3M. She earned 71% of the vote to hold her seat in Congress in the first district of the state of Iowa against David Pouch. I don't know if I'm saying that name right, but it's irrelevant. Um 3M has struggled to barely beat her Democrat opponent the last couple of cycles, if you're aware of this. There was like Nancy Pelosi at one point wasn't even gonna confirm her election results. Uh for I mean, it was uh they'd already come into Congress and started that. That was the first time, and then the same thing happened again. She just barely won. There was a recount. Um, so she will always be in a district that is tough to uh to to be a Republican, but she has been there for a while as a congressman, she congressperson. She did it again, um, and now she'll have to uh be facing Democrat. Her uh her opponent on in this fall will be the Democrat Christina Bohanan, who earned 81% of the vote last week. Um, so I was sad to see the voters in our second congressional district choose the wrong guy, in my opinion. Uh they chose Joe Mitchell over a guy named Charlie McClintock uh by 6138 margin. That's too bad. Uh, I was hoping that Charlie would get that. It wasn't. It was Joe Mitchell. I don't know. I don't know Joe. I know Charlie a little bit, so I was kind of hoping for McClintock. Mitchell will now face Lindsey James, who won a three-way primary on the Democrat side, gaining 58% of the vote. So in a three-way, that's pretty good. Uh Lindsey James versus Joe Mitchell. It'll be Mitchell James this fall in second congressional district in Iowa. Then Zach Nunn ran unopposed for the Republicans. He's been there for a while in Congress. And this is the third congressional district. And so Iowa Republicans went ahead and let him have it with nearly 99% of the vote. What a wave, what a red wave in favor of Zach Nunn. But again, he ran unopposed, got 99% of the vote. But there were 695 Republicans who wrote in somebody else, and I always would love to see who was written in because there's got to be some doozies in there for that. But Zach Nunn will run this fall. He'll face Sarah Trone Garriott, uh, who ran unopposed for the Democrats. And with the exception of Marionette Miller Meeks, uh, you can usually pick the party based on the number of names that they've got. And so is so so none will run against Sarah Trone Garriott in the third congressional district uh for Iowa. And in District 4, the Republicans went 99% for Chris McGowan. But again, that was one that was unopposed as well. And so McGowan now will face off this November against Dave Dawson, who won a fairly close three-way primary for the Democrats against Stephanie Steiner and Ashley Wolf Tournebane, who sadly came in third. But man, that would have been a fun last name to hear on the radio for months on end in District 4. Wolf Tournebane. And she didn't win. So it's gonna be it's gonna be uh McGowan uh versus Dave Dawson, unfortunately. Kind of boring names. Wolf Tournebane would have been better, but oh well, maybe next time. In statewide offices last Tuesday, Paul Pate won the Republican primary for Secretary of State, running unopposed, but his name rhymes with the job title, so that really helps in my opinion. Paul Pate, Secretary of State, Pate State. He'll run against unopposed Democrat Ryan Peterman, whose name, by the way, does not match or rhyme with the job title that is familiar to uh uh those of us. But but I will say this um Democrat Ryan Peterman, Peterman, Peterman, uh is going to be running against Paul Pate for Secretary of State. I would say go with the rhyming version on that one. Um, however, uh Peterman is a last name that doesn't rhyme, but it does uh seem familiar to us Seinfeld fans, right? Peterman. Uh Roby Smith won unopposed for the primary for treasurer for the Republicans. Smith is now gonna face John Norwood this fall, who also ran unopposed for the Democrats. Actually, all the state offices for the Democrats this season and primaries were run unopposed. And I don't know if that's because the Dems either don't think they're gonna win anyway in these state offices, which they typically don't, or they were just super organized this time when they decided who was going on the ticket for this primary season. So Roby Smith is gonna face um John Norwood uh for state treasurer, and then Brenna Byrd, the non-Israeli BB of Iowa BB. Uh Brenna Byrd, the Republican, uh currently the Republican uh attorney general for the state of Iowa, won her unchallenged primary on Tuesday, and she's gonna face off uh with, I assume, another attorney named Nate Willems this fall, who's a Democrat, and he was running unopposed as well. So we'll see between Brenna Byrd, a BB, the non-Israeli BB of Iowa, and Nate Willems. Not Williams. There's no A in Willems. There it is, and that will be happening this fall. But then it gets, I think, interesting. Mike Neg is the current Secretary of Agriculture in Iowa, and he won his unopposed primary as well, to nobody's surprise. But this former Monsanto lobbyist is now going to face Chris Jones, who has been warning Iowans for quite a while about the nitrates in our water supply. He's been doing this for decades, and it got to the point where he was so annoying, claiming that our water was not good because of the nitrates and other environmental issues uh related to agriculture, um, that uh Governor Reynolds cut his funding. They said enough, enough from what's going on over there. And so uh now Chris Jones, the Democrat, who won his primary on Tuesday, is going to be running against Mike Nag, the former Monsanto lobbyist for Secretary of Agriculture in the state of Iowa. Now, if you're a farmer, you're probably thinking, well, that's a good thing. We want to have Bear Monsanto and Farm Bureau in charge of our state office for Secretary of Agriculture and our well water be damned. But Chris Jones is uh gaining a lot of traction and making and bringing a lot of attention and heat uh to this. And so there's no need to discuss nitrates in our drinking water, apparently, um when uh you're the governor of Iowa or the Republican legislature. Just don't discuss the nitrates in our drinking water when there are lobbyists like Bear and Farm Bureau to answer to. So guess what? This fall, folks, believe it or not, I plan to vote for Chris Jones for Secretary of Agriculture because even though he's a Democrat and he might be an environmental loon, but I don't think he is, having been a Monsanto uh lobbyist like Mike Nag was, and to be honest, he probably still is. Look, you don't step away from it that far. Um that's all I need to know when it comes to making my decision and marking my ballot. Sorry, Mike Nag, but the fact that you've got Monsanto on your resume tells me everything I need to know, and the answer is no. In a way, I though I think, and we'll talk about this in a in a little bit here, Jones, Chris Jones, who's running for Secretary of Agriculture as a Democrat, and Zach Long Lane, I always say long because there's an H in it and it's a weird spelling. Zach Lane, uh who did win the government uh governor primary, we'll come back to that, they might actually do some good despite being on the opposite sides of the aisle. And so that would be a good balance, in my opinion, because I think if it was a Democrat governor and a and a and a Democrat like Chris Jones at Secretary of Agriculture, then you're gonna have all kinds of egregious, ridiculous things happening to agriculture that don't need to happen, that could be managed in a different way. But if you have a Republican governor and uh who is also on that same track of rejuvenative farming and and uh and and being concerned about our water, um then maybe those two can balance each other out. That's my hope. That's my sincere hope uh for the state of Iowa. But I will not be voting for Mike Nag. Sorry, you just got too much money behind you, and the I uh state of Iowa Agriculture Department is uh, I think almost wholly owned and funded, um, or at least uh in in influenced by big agriculture, and I'm not interested in that at all. And you aren't either, unless you are big ag. And prep my guess is if you're less than 20,000 acres, you're not big. If you're less than 10,000 acres, heck, if you're less than 5,000 acres farming, you're not big ag. Um, and even if you think you're big ag uh you're not big ag. And so um uh that's uh that's the family farms that are paying uh the price for this, and I don't like it. So it's gonna come down to some policy decisions, whatever it happens to be between the offices of governor and the uh secretary of agriculture in a state that claims to be feeding the world like the state of Iowa does, and we're feeding the world with number two corn and soybeans, but we import 90% of the food we eat. Come on, come on, Iowa. Uh we import we import over 90% of the food we eat in the grocery store. That's not coming from Iowa. It used to, it used to, but now it's monoculture farming, and that's what you do. And don't ask any questions uh because we feed the world. But we've got places with poorer soils in this in the nation that are actually feeding us every day with the fruits and vegetables uh that we that we grow. Now, we do grow a lot of pigs and we do have some cattle, and there is that going on. So we've got some meat, uh, but we don't have the pasture to sustain it. So let's see what happens there. I told you what I'm gonna do for Secretary of Agriculture. That might make a lot of people unhappy. Don't care. That is uh that's what's great about having your own show. If you don't like it, get your own show. Rob Sand, now this guy, he's the current state auditor and the only Democrat in the statewide office currently in the state of Iowa. He's the state auditor and nothing but a burr in the saddle of Kim Reynolds and the Republicans in the state of Iowa for as long as he's been there. He won his primary for governor, which was not a surprise since he ran unopposed, but that means he leaves his office of auditor to do so. And so we'll come back to the governor race in a minute, but that left a primary opening for auditor on the Republican side between the current Lieutenant Governor, Chris Cornier, and Abigail Moss. Now, I'll tell you, I voted for Moss because there were some, in my well, just you know, it's called research and reading. If there were some questionable allegations about Cornier when she was in the legislature, she was a senator. And I don't think that they were fully rectified. And then she was appointed by Governor Reynolds to the second spot following Amy Sinclair, who was acting as the lieutenant governor in the two spot following the resignation of Adam Gregg. This was a while ago. So Cornier just goes appointed. To lieutenant governor, not interested in being the governor. But regardless, Cornier won. And I don't know if it's from name recognition or Republicans just not doing their homework or whatever the deal is. It's a primary. There's more than one option. There's a good chance they're going to make the wrong choice. Cornier won. And so this fall she's going to face off with Taylor Weddek. Weddch. Don't know. Don't know how to say the name. It won't matter anyway. Probably not going to win. The Democrats aren't going to win the auditor for whatever reason, even though Rob Sand had held that in the past and currently holds it. So, you know, having Cornier as the auditor, that's been a goal for the outgoing governor, Kim Reynolds, ever since I think Sand took office. So yes, I mean I think we can all agree firmly placed tongue in cheek that less auditing of state government is exactly what is needed these days. And I think that's exactly what we're going to get when Cornier becomes the new auditor, which is probably likely to happen. So then we get to the governor race. Might as well talk about it. Now listen, there were five men on the ticket in the Republican primary last week, and uh they weren't all white, uh, but there were five men on the ticket for the primary for governor, current Congressman Randy Feenstra, who was President Trump's endorsed candidate for whatever reason, and he had something like, I don't know, $32 million in his campaign account. That's basically all you do when you get elected to a federal office, particularly in the House of Representatives, is you just raise money for yourself and others. Zach Lane uh faced uh he's had some trouble uh for having a home in Wichita, Kansas, and then he operates, among other businesses, uh and a farm or whatever, he operates uh a for-profit private school down there in Kansas. Uh Adam Steen was on the ticket. Brad Sherman and Eddie Andrews were the uh rounded out the five. Both Andrews and Sherman are pastors of some sort. Andrews is a Pentecostal and Sherman is a non-denominational, which has been said by, I guess, by a certain Christian comedian, means a non-denominational just means Baptist, but with a better website. Now, I don't personally like it when pastors run for public office. I don't like it. I feel they have a calling far more, they should have a calling far more significant than public office. And it makes me question what are they up to and whether they are truly satisfied with the call that supposedly they already have, uh, which is supposed to be from God. So I don't like it. Um they were not on my radar. Sorry, just that's not how I want to. If truly are called to take care of a flock, then you need to take care of that flock. That is a better role for you because uh, in my uh estimation, the kingdom of heaven is superior uh to all governments in the world, including, believe it or not, believe it or not, the United States government. So the kingdom of heaven is by far superior. That's who you should be serving. But apparently they want to run for office. And by the way, um that's exactly what is happening uh in Kansas City down or in Kansas or Missouri. I don't know if it's Missouri or Kansas, I can't, I I I'm not following, but um, yeah, there's uh there's uh Adam Hamilton is the pastor of the largest uh Methodist church in the United States, uh, and that is um uh Resurrection uh Church and and it's the largest uh church in in the Kansas City area, so it's a mega church. He's uh written lots of books, um taught lots of classes, um very I've I appreciate his style. I've been to the church, I've seen his sermons, uh he's a very impressive person. He's gonna be, however, he has decided that his flock is now managed by enough of his subordinates that he's gonna go ahead and he just has to throw his uh hat in the ring, I think, for Senate, uh either in Missouri or Kansas, not sure which one, as a Democrat, uh, which um is disappointing. Uh not because of his decision um to you know run as a Democrat. Uh he said he really prayed about it or whatever. I don't care so much about that. It doesn't really surprise me on the Methodist side, they're pretty liberal in most capacities anyway. However, um it more I'm more disappointed in the fact that he is um seeking public office. But you know, you're leading uh the Methodist Church really in the United States in a lot of ways. You have the largest Methodist church in Kansas City, the largest church in Kansas City, the largest Methodist church in the United States, and you've decided to give yourself over to um to public policy. It's a bad decision, in my opinion. And I don't I don't like it when pastors do that. Uh I don't trust it. And so uh I just uh they were not on my radar, the two guys that were uh that were already pastors, sorry guys. Listen, I there's nothing wrong with being a public servant, you know, and you're elected by your constituency and you have a deep-seated faith in Christ. In fact, I prefer that for obvious reasons, but there's but there's something I think that's just disconcerting about evangelical pastors, particularly stepping aside from their flock to achieve an office, say like governor or senator. I don't like it. Um I don't think Mike Huckabee was a good governor because he was a Baptist minister. I certainly don't think that he is a good uh ambassador to Israel. Uh he's basically ambassador to the United States for Israel, that's my opinion. Uh and so I don't like uh I don't like it when they do that. It seems like they were apparently the flock that they were given wasn't good enough for them. Um and so um I just I just don't like that. And so um so that eliminated a couple of people uh right off the bat, despite whether they're good men. I hope that they are, I'm sure that they are nice people, all of that stuff, but go back to your flock, do your job for God there. The kingdom of heaven outranks all governments in the world. And so that boiled it down really to Randy Feenstra, which who was Trump's favorite, and this guy, Zach Lane, uh, that's who it came down to for me. I can't tell you how many times that I heard Republicans, even my own wife, say that if Randy Feenstra won the primary for governor, they would be voting for Rob Sand. And I'll tell you what, I think a lot of people felt that way uh because it seemed to be the general sentiment of the entire state, at least on the Republican side, uh, because Zach Lane, a much younger and more dynamic candidate than Milktoast Randy, carried the day by a mere 0.07% or just less than 2,000 votes statewide and won the Republican primary for governor. And it was the first time this election season that Republicans shunned, they shunned President Donaldo Trump's endorsement and decided that they knew what was better for Iowa than uh Manhattan Don. And that was good to see. Now, in my opinion, hey, he's from Queens. Now, that was good to see. So Lane will is now he's now he's gonna need to fight for the top job in Iowa against Rob Sand, who's been running for governor since I think he was in grade school. And to be honest, he's so young looking, it kind of looks like he was there just not so long ago. So uh he ran unopposed on the Democratic side, uh, Rob Sand did, and that guy's got a war chest to run on, which by the way includes money from the friendly governor of the state of Illinois to our East, uh among other of the usual suspects in the Democratic Party. So he's gonna have lots of money. Uh, they definitely want to turn Iowa, at least the governor's seat, blue. And I think uh that's uh that there's a possibility they could do it. Sam's got ambition, he's got energy. Uh Sand, not Sam, Sand's got all of that stuff, that ambition and that energy. And he's got a way of, I think, making voters really believe that he's right there in the middle of things, just a level-headed candidate for Iowans who are middle of the road, level-headed folks. But of course, we've seen that snake oil sold before, uh, whether it's here in the state of Iowa or across the United States, so we'll see what happens. But Rob Sand has a very good shot at winning this fall, and everyone knows it on the Republican side, and everyone on the Republican side also knows Randy Feenstra, who never attended a debate he wanted to be at, didn't stand a chance, not a snowball's chance in hell of beating uh Rob Sand. Personality matters, folks, and that's what it came down to, amongst other things, which is why Iowa Republicans chose Zach Lane. Lane has been on the Tucker Carlson Show and other popular shows discussing things like the terribly high cancer rate in Iowa and his own rejuvenative farming practices that he does and a lot more. So he's he's part of the Maha movement, and I like that. And that means uh make America healthy again. It means uh you may very well expect to see the usual Republican, big Republican donors like Bear Monsanto, the meat packing cartels, and Farm Bureau put their greasy fingers on the scale for sand just because they just do not want Zach Lane to win, which would be very interesting. Uh something like that could happen. Lane will have to overcome this thing about living part-time in Kansas. I mean, that's a real issue. It's going to be a big part of the candidate. Oh, he's not even an Iowan. But you can expect that the advertisements and the junk mailers that we all love so much to continue uh through the first week in November across the state of Iowa, and we'll come back to that in just a minute. But look, what it boils down to with uh with the with Zach Lane uh and Rob Sand for governor in the state of Iowa and the Maha movement and uh whether or not it's going to be uh successful, whether or not it resonates with Iowa voters, uh it's gonna come down to two younger guys uh with young families who have the ability to get out there and vote. Now, the Sand family's got a lot of money. I'm not exactly sure what the Lane family's got. I'm sure they can come up with some. Um, but if you go back to Tucker Carlson and watch his interview with him there, you'll find that he's talking about things that Republicans don't usually talk about, uh, which is why it was interesting to me in the first place. Um but that may not be um what Republicans and I will want to hear. And so it'll be it'll be tough to see. But what a great thing for the state of Iowa to say we know what we want more than what Donald Trump wants. We have decided by a very, very slim margin uh to go ahead and pick our own guy. Thank you very much. Uh we're going to do our own thing. And so I hope that Zach Lane wins the uh governor governor's race this fall as the Republican. I think that he'll be a good uh candidate and a good governor. Um, and I look forward to seeing what happens there. Um but I tell you what, Rob Sand is a formidable candidate for sure, and he's got a lot of things going on on, especially if you're watching YouTube. I mean, it's just uh the ads are everywhere and they've been kind of going on for two years. He's been running very hard. Uh, he wants to be governor desperately, and um, you just never know uh what is exactly going to happen with uh with particularly in the governor's office, they have to appeal to the independence, and I think both of these men do appeal to the independence, and uh clearly uh Zach Lane was not Donald Trump's endorsement. And so at this point, I'm wondering uh by the time it comes around in November, does Trump's endorsement matter or does it hurt uh a guy like Zach Lane uh coming into um the fall election for governor? And uh, you know, what is Rob Sand actually going to bring to the table when it's all said and done? Right now he's really preaching uh a uh a uh a just uh you know big tenth, uh everybody is, you know, I'm gonna represent everybody, and we need to quit hating on each other. And I agree with all of that stuff. We, you know, the enemy is right in front of us, but interestingly enough, this is exactly the same type of message um the Zach Lane is bringing. And the difference between these two young these two younger men is that they actually have the, you know, Zach Lane actually knows how to, you know, run a business. And uh, you know, Sand has just kind of been a political operative his entire life, uh starting in high school. So it's uh not saying that Zach Lane doesn't have political operative. Obviously, he won the primary for governor uh by just uh raise a thin margin, uh, but he did do it. So we'll see how this develops. Could be very interesting. Uh, that brings me back to the things that I really wanted to talk about last week that happened. Iowa Republicans in my Senate district five went ahead and chose the wrong candidate, despite our best efforts here on this show, The Sunny Side of Life, to show them the right way uh to the right one, which I think was Stacy Besh and still do. Stacy lost by 356 votes to Dave Rowley, thanks in large part to his overwhelming success in his home county of Dickinson County, where he carried uh that by a margin of victory of over a thousand votes. And he just, you know, when you lose by 356 votes, uh Dickinson County really uh saved the day for Dave. Uh so he'll return to the Senate because they don't have a uh candidate running against him for the Democrats. Stacy ran a clean grassroots campaign, and you heard her positions right here on the show twice. The most recent was last Monday. And I tell you, it was disappointing to see her come up short so close, but just just not enough, so close, but uh not enough. Uh having, you know, I helped her uh personally canvass my home county of Winnebago, uh, which she did win, by the way, but barely. And it deeply, really deeply irritated me that she had come up with the vast majority. Um had she come up with the vast majority, I guess, it was irritating that she didn't. It was almost split down the middle. She won by just a you know a handful of votes uh in in uh Winnebago County. She carried it, she carried all the other counties except Dickinson County. Um, but but um they just wasn't there just weren't enough people, not enough votes, and it was too close. It was uh she won those counties, but it wasn't enough to add up to victory overall because she had that thousand point deficit uh or that thousand vote deficit in Dickinson County. So I was annoyed that the uh 300 there were 356 people in Iowa in my county that did not vote for her, at least, and that would have carried her into the spot. So uh I'll be looking for you. You made the wrong decision. Uh I don't understand why you did that. But it really was the Dickinson County area that made that happen for uh Dave Rowley. He'll return to the Senate. And the Dickinson County Sheriff that we talked about last week endorsed her opponent, Dave Rowley, even though he believed Stacy was gonna win anyway, but of course she didn't. Instead, just a few days before the primary last Tuesday, nasty mailers were sent out that just they twisted the truth about her volunteer mission as she was trying about about about fighting human trafficking. They besmirched her character relating to law enforcement and uh her support of law endorsement, which was ridiculous in the first place. They were all lies, all lies, but they worked, they worked, they worked against the old people. I don't know, people that don't know how to use the internet and research things for yourself. But fortunately for you, unfortunately, it's too late for Stacy. Those were lies that were perpetuated, and supposedly not by her opponent. Uh apparently folks that attended the rally with the Winnebago Hancock County Republicans, uh, which was actually last week as well, just before the election, uh Raleigh was there and he was very apologetic about all the nasty things that had come out. Yeah, right, buddy. Dark money packs is where this came from. PAX, PAX, PACs. Packs, by the way, that I had taken the time to look into since you apparently didn't voted against Stacey. And who, and I want to let you know who's behind them for your listening pleasure and your enjoyment before we get into that cool Johnny Cash story that I'm about to wrap up with. But let's talk about this. Here's what happened. Quite simply, the pack that sent out the mailer using Sheriff Balloon's quote is called the American Policy Project. The American Policy Project, it's a registered 501c4 entity that's created that was created in April of 2024. Okay, and it's uh it's got uh it's registered in Omaha, Nebraska. Its print president and principal officer is a guy named Kyle Adima or Adana or Adana Adama A-D-E-M-A, who uses his address as uh the PAC's mailing address, same address in Omaha, Nebraska. The secretary of that particular organization, the American Policy Project, a guy named Anthony Connor from Omaha, and he's the president of the Nebraska Fraternal Order of Police, FOP, and uh is a police officer with the Omaha uh division with 26 years of service come this July. Um these guys are um uh both uh Adima or Adama and Connor are about in their late 40s in that range. Uh they graduated in the mid-90s from high school, and then the treasurer is a guy named Chase Martin um for uh the organization American Policy Project. They have a very unhelpful website at American Policy Project.com. And according to his LinkedIn profile, um the president, uh the Kyle Adama guy is the owner of financial resources, the Adama Group, or Edima, I don't know how to say his name, and it and is um and he graduated or at least is an alum of University of South Dakota. Um so apparently there's an insurance interest there. Um came from Sioux City uh originally, uh graduated from Sioux City North. And then um, but most recently, interesting thing about the uh this guy behind um the American Policy Project, he was in the Nebraska News for filing a petition to allow online sports gambling in Nebraska as a way maybe to achieve property tax relief. But we really need online sports gambling in Nebraska. Okay, according to NebraskaPublicmedia.org, there's a whole article about it there. He also chairs, and interestingly enough, he's in he's also in charge of another pack. He's a guy behind another pack, a pack called Advancing Our Values, which is also based out of Omaha, Nebraska. Now, this pack is a little bit bigger, it's been around a little bit longer, came around in 2023, uh, and uh they were working actually in 2023 against Donald Trump, uh, who was running obviously in 2024, and they were in favor of Ron DeSantis. Remember, Ron? And they attracted attention from The Guardian uh for circulating mailers, mailers, hmm, like what we saw against Stacey Besh in Iowa. And he was, they were this organization, this other pack that the Adema or Adama runs, the American, whatever, what's it called, the Advancing Our Values Pack, um, they were saying that Trump was soft on the transgender agenda. So he needed Ron DeSantis. So so they were supporting Ron DeSantis, which is fine, that's within their rights. New PACs can do that. Um but they the way that they do it is they send in their skeevy little remarks and their skeevy little mailers. And in my opinion, uh whether the articles from The Guardian come in uh or wherever they happen to be in about these particular places, they always say that they're uh they're they're Iowa-based, but they're actually registered with the IRS as 501c4s in Omaha, Nebraska. That's where you can get this information. And they uh that that then they use a registered agent service, usually based in Des Moines, and in this case for the mailer with Stacey Besh, it was out of Johnston, Iowa, so same area. So you just get somebody to do your mailing for you with that Iowa address, so it looks like they're coming from in the state, but it's a pack that's outside of the state. And clearly these are profit, these are nonprofits, dark money nonprofit packs, which is what pretty much all packs are, and and uh they're just picking who they want, and then the way that they're going about is not providing better information about their candidate, they're doing it with skeevy, dirty tricks and nasty things that they try to do uh with their company. So these people are guns for hire, is all that they are. I don't know how successful uh this particular guy is or these particular people are in their own fields, uh outside of you know, lying and and sending packs, you know, little little little mailers all over the place. Um, you know, but apparently this is a side hustle for them uh and they enjoy doing it uh quite a bit. And uh you should be aware of that. Anytime that you get a mailer, just throw it away. In the mail, just throw it away, or you can return to sender, which is something is hilarious to do. Send that junk mail right back to these turds uh who keep sending it out. But it does work and they know it works. They these are the same type of people who, in my opinion, are just like the same the folks, the telemarketers that get on the phone and can convince old people to give them their bank account numbers because there's something wrong, or their their grandson needs money to get out of jail or something like that. They're the same type of people, the same type of characters that would do that because they know that the mailers only work, they only work on old people who still read the newspaper. And I get the newspaper too, but give me a break. And they don't look, then they have no questions. They don't look, they look, where does this come from? Who what is it about? Well, I should look it up on the internet. I should look at your really poor uh website that it gives you almost no information, tells you nothing about it or anything like it. And that's the they they don't do any of the research, they just look at it and they go, Well, I guess I'll vote for this candidate. Because this guy says that a random mailer send it back. They're the same people that'll call your grandma and ask for a bank account number. That's the same type of people that these people are. So um that's my uh that's my little research that I did. Uh you know, if they if if if this guy's got his own business, the the group that he says he has, and he's had it since 2001, specializes in insurance, but also posts on his LinkedIn um resume that he's worked for a bunch of other insurance companies. Like, how successful is your group if you're working for all these other insurance companies, including Farm Bureau, between now and then. Uh you just got to wonder exactly how successful he actually is and why he's busy, so busy forming 501 C F or C4 organizations and who is helping him out and who is uh, you know, what does he get paid for that? Sometimes it does show what they're uh on the IRS returns, what uh what people do get paid uh for doing these type of things for packs. So it's very interesting uh how this happened. These are not these are just like, and they're not even enormous packs, not they're not the packs that you're used to hearing. They're just a they're just zillions of them and they're created and they just send out slanderous things. That's just terrible, uh, in my opinion, what is happening. Um those those they're they're just slightly you know crafted words and in and phrases and sentences that makes uh people go, ooh, I don't know if I like that, and it's successful and it works, and that's why they get paid to do it uh one way or the other. So if you like that, uh get ready for a whole lot more because that's what we're about to see, uh, particularly in the uh runoff, the elections that are coming up uh all the way into the first week of November. And it's just as disappointing that that stuff happens. I'm sorry that uh Stacy left. She worked so hard. I think she spent the day after um uh finding out that she did not win, mowing the lawn, getting caught up on the things around the house. Uh, and she seems to be handling it very well. Um, and uh she's got God's got a lot of things in plan for her. We have not seen the end of her. Uh, I appreciate um everything that she tried to do, and I'm disappointed in the the voters in my district that didn't get it. Um, but again, uh possibility if there's more than one candidate on there uh that they're gonna choose the wrong one and we already talked about that so let me wrap up this story uh with uh a a uh just a fun story that you might I want to put this in your brain and we're gonna leave you with that because this is the sunny side of life and we're gonna get on with other things as the week develops here but I gotta tell you you know I sang in the Johnny Cash show as Johnny Cash uh several months ago and back in January had a lot of fun talked about it promoted it did all kinds of things and we had a great show and so of course those songs stick in my head and I feel like I know them pretty well uh and I feel like at times I can actually sound a little bit like Johnny Cash even though I don't look like him. He had way better hair than I did a whole whole head of hair and I do not have a head of hair at all. But Johnny Cash decided that um when he was at State Track and I'm talking about me as Johnny Cash we were at State Track as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago uh watching our son Colin perform the high jump and three other events at uh state track down at the Drake Stadium and of course that's on University or just off University Avenue in the great city of Des Moines our capital state of Iowa and as we were driving back to our hotel rolling down University uh we saw none other than La Bonita Mexican Grill in Cantina which is on university in the Windsor Heights uh area of Des Moines and so um uh we said hey let's uh you know it's the end of the day let's get something to eat there's still open and guess what it's Friday night they are they have got believe it or not karaoke yes they've got karaoke and La Bonita Mexican grill which is very well reviewed as it should be I had a delicious Guadalajara special which is grilled steak chicken and shrimp with bell peppers onion tomato mmm cheese sauce and rice and no beans I can't stand the beans I don't like the beans so and also anytime it says Guadalajara I mean you're probably gonna get me to order it because I don't even know where Guadalajara is but it's such a great name that I have to have to go ahead and get it. So I got the Guadalajara special and uh family was there we had a great time uh and then of course you know karaoke is going on at La Bonita Mexican Grill and Cantina on University Avenue in Windsor Heights and that is um the my family's like you know you gotta sing you know and I'm like I don't want to sing of course I I do want to sing but I'm like I don't need to sing and uh we're trying to like go ahead and sing put your name in now we'll take the order and whatever. Okay. So we just let's sing a Johnny Cash song and they're like which one we sing Ring of Fire everybody sings that everybody knows that whatever I said I know what I'll do I'm gonna sing a boy named Sue which really you don't have to sing that song there's just like a couple of melodic parts but everything else is almost it's just a story being told uh it's actually a poem written by Shell Silverstein. You know it a boy named Sue. Well my dad left home when I was three and didn't leave much for Ma on me. Anyway so um it's like I put that in I walked over to the table and now let me say that the staff of the La Bonita Mexican grilling cantina are fabulous. The food is fabulous. The atmosphere is very good. It is not like old school cantina I mean it's decorated to be that way but it's kind of in a modern building uh and so uh you have a nice parking lot and you walk in and and they've got great food and all that stuff and then what happens is well they also have at this particular time not on a Friday night they've got uh a variety uh an eclectic group of people of course there's families that are in there dining and there's small groups up maybe on date nights and things like that and all of this stuff and then of course there is a small there is a percentage of the people who have an alternative form of lifestyle which is fine with me but it's very interesting. You could pick them out pretty easily because they've decided to wear different hair colors uh than what God had ever put on anybody's head and they're also um dressed differently and sometimes they're dressed completely differently as in dressed as the opposite gender even though they have beards etc or vice versa or whatever is going on. Look I'm not too uh aware of all of the ins and outs uh thank God of of that particular culture but they're very friendly and they're very wonderful and it was a very nice place and they were also the ones running the karaoke machine. So I went up I put in my thing hello how you doing they're very friendly. They came around and they give this is the thing about La Bonita Mexican Grill and Cantina on University in Windsor Heights and not there's this not a commercial for them but I mean I just go there if you're ever in the area it's really good food and it's a great environment and it'll help you put this into your brain is a story of what happened. They give you complimentary shots at tequila so yeah let's do karaoke and uh we did that and so I sang a boy named Sue when my name got called I sang a boy named Sue. Picture this me like Johnny Cash except bald and uh not as thin and I wasn't wearing black I was wearing like school colors and looking out over the audience of eclectic people and singing a boy named Sue to an audience of ladies named Bill Tom and Henry and that is how you bring the sunny side to other folks's when the shadows fall and doubts begin to creep remember together we're strong never weak lift your neighbor up with kindness every day let your actions speak the words you want to say the sunny side of life is a weekly production about our life on the family farmstead here in Iowa the liberties we prize and the pursuits which make us happy none of this is possible of course without Christ in our lives for the Lord God is our son and our shield. He gives us grace and glory side life may the Lord bless you and keep you and may the sunny side of your life in Christ be made evident unto you each and every day and give you peace