Pat Rynard founded Iowa Starting Line in 2015. He still keeps a close eye on Iowa politics, his dog’s name is Frank, and football season is his favorite time of year.
Pat Rynard
Latest from Pat Rynard
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New Ad Targets Miller-Meeks On COVID Relief, GOP Tax Cut Hypocrisy
Provisionally-seated Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks is already facing one of her first big tests in Congress with the coming COVID-19 relief package. Just this Friday, the House advanced the portion of the bill that provides $1,400 direct payments to most Americans and up to $3,600 for every child in a family. Many Republicans have signaled their…
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MAGA Conspiracy Theorist Declares For Chuck Grassley’s Seat
A Western Iowa legislator who believes Democrats stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump and called America’s current political situation a “war” will announce his candidacy for longtime Sen. Chuck Grassley’s seat on Monday. It’s unclear yet whether Grassley, 87, will seek an eight term. Most in Iowa politics had expected that any Republican interested…
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Reynolds Fundraises Off Her COVID Safety Rollback
Gov. Kim Reynolds is turning her actions during Iowa’s deadly pandemic into a moneymaker for her reelection campaign. Earlier today, Reynolds’ political account tweeted out a fundraising link with a video of her appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show where she promoted her rollback of many of Iowa’s COVID safety measures. In it, the…
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Kim Reynolds Declares The Pandemic Over In Iowa
Good news, Iowans: the pandemic is over. Well, at least in Gov. Kim Reynolds’ mind it is. In reality, thousands of Iowans are still testing positive for the virus every day, hundreds die weekly, and the vaccine rollout here is a total mess. But for those wishing to ignore reality (and the health and safety…
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House Republicans Should Have Learned From Steve King
This shouldn’t be that hard. As House Republicans give up on how to deal with dangerous conspiracy theorist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, it’s hard not to see some parallels to Iowa’s own Steve King situation. And that makes it all the more ridiculous and unacceptable that the question of whether to strip committees from someone…
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What The IDP Needs Now Is Stability
State Rep. Ross Wilburn is settling in to his second week as the new chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, starting the work of assembling a new staff for a state party that’s looking to rebound from another poor election cycle. Wilburn’s election, along with making history as the first Black leader of a major…
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And We’re Back (For Now)
Iowa Starting Line has some temporary good news to share with our readers — we are restarting the website and publishing for at least the next two months. We acquired some funding to keep Starting Line active for February and March while we work through some bigger decisions and seek out a long-term plan for…
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Starting Line On Hiatus As We Consider Future
As you’ve probably noticed, Iowa Starting Line has been rather quiet lately. I’ve decided to stop publishing for the time being as I consider significant changes to our operation or whether to continue on at all. In reality, this hiatus began at the start of December, it’s just taken me this long to finally write…
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What Iowa Starting Line Accomplished In 2020
As a very, very long 2020 winds down to a close, I thought it would be good to take a look back at what Iowa Starting Line accomplished in our most successful year yet. One thing I don’t always do a good job of is publicly touting our successes — I’m always cautious about sounding…
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Please Excuse Our Absence
You’ve probably noticed if you’re seeing this off the main page that Starting Line hasn’t posted much at all in December. I’ve been meaning to put out two large updates on everything we accomplished in 2020 and what we’re thinking about for the news site moving forward. Unfortunately, when you’re trying to write that you’re…
