Iowa Talking Points--Dave Bushaw--Tue. Sep. 08, 2026

This is Iowa Talking Points, the candidates, produced by Studio 5 at Mud Advertising and Totally Iowa Media, where you hear from candidates in the November 2026 general election.

Now, Iowa Talking Points, the candidates.

From Studio 5 at Mud and Cedar Falls, here is Jeff Stein.

Hello and welcome.

There will be a new member of Congress representing Northeast Iowa's second district in Washington in January of 2027.

It will be an open seat due to the current incumbents seeking other office.

Now there are four candidates on the November General Election ballot and one of them joins us at the Iowa Talking Points table today.

He is Dave Bushaw.

Mr. Bushaw is an independent running for Congress from Northeast Iowa.

His website is Dave Bushaw.

Thanks so much for taking the time, sir.

Yeah, thanks for inviting me on here.

I appreciate you.

So why make a run for Congress?

What are some of the issues that are really driving this?

Because it is no easy task anytime and it is even more of a challenge for an independent.

That's right, yeah.

And usually I'm not

driven to run for politics.

I'm an organizer, a lifelong community organizer.

I'm usually the guy fighting the government and pushing community leaders to do what the community wants.

But the reason why I'm running, it really stems from after I left my last organization, which I helped to build over the last five years.

We're sitting last year with some of my buddies.

And we're sitting in the middle of the government shut down.

You had the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership saying, we got to shut the government down.

We're fighting for you guys.

And I'm from the working class poor.

So I don't see them as fighting for us.

I see them as holding the most vulnerable in our society hostage with their food stamps and their health care.

And I said, enough is enough.

Talking with some of my buddies, they said, you should run for Congress.

And I said, that is ridiculous.

You don't even vote.

He said, well, you got to give us something to vote for.

You're one of us, and you have to do it for all of us.

And we started looking at it.

And we saw, oh, independents are the plurality in this district.

There's more independence than Democrats or Republicans.

And it's not even close.

13 of the 22 counties in this district, the second congressional district, were national pivot counties, which means that they went hardcore.

hardcore Obama to hardcore Trump three times.

And we saw that, you know, with 60% of the country wanting a third party option on the ballot, 45% of Americans identifying as independents already.

I think that prairie populism and independent thoughts still exists up here and they deserve that option on the ballot.

So you want to give your friends something to vote for.

Yeah.

Based on issues.

So what are some of these key issues that

will lead them to actually get out and cast a ballot.

Sure, absolutely.

So I'm a young farmland owner, one of the youngest first-generation farmland owners in the country.

A lot of my friends are either adjacent to farming or work directly in the agricultural industry.

And one of my big driving policies is that we are going to see the largest transfer of farmland to the next generation in modern American history.

It seems that a lot of people in Congress don't understand that, or if they do, they're obfuscating their duty to

address it.

Right now, 60% of farmland is owned by people 65 and older.

35% is owned by people 75 or older and less than 1% is like me, younger than 35.

I want to get in there and

I want to say I was farming industry from being consolidated by multinational and foreign corporations.

So that means diversification of our crops, making sure that we address food security as a national security issue and developing food and produce here that we use here.

maybe a tenth or 15% of food that Iowans eat was actually grown in Iowa.

That's not the way it was 50, 60, 70 years ago.

So agriculture is a big thing for me.

I am the only candidate in this race with an agricultural background.

And I started my farm when I was 19 years old, first generation.

I'm also a big proponent of universal health care, which I think is something that affects

A lot of people, you know, insecurity around healthcare.

We rank 14th in quality, dead last in healthcare outcomes, and we have a lower life expectancy than other developed nations.

While paying more than any other nation on the face of the planet for healthcare, that's not freedom, it's failure.

And someone needs to call it out.

One of my opponents says we need a path towards, you know, shoring up Medicare, Medicaid, whatever.

The other one says defend some of the good things of Obamacare.

I say we eliminate private tax.

which are premiums, copayments, and deductibles that are imposed on working people, and be fiscally conserved and responsible and guarantee healthcare as an American right.

So that's another one of my policies, as well as housing, because it's one of the pieces of equitable wealth that the working class can use for upward mobility.

We see that private equity firms by 2030 anticipate controlling 40% of all single family housing and people say Dave where'd you get that statistic from a private equity firm did the study themselves that is their anticipated goal and I would like to ban private equity firms from monopolizing housing Not just housing but our trailer courts here in Iowa which a lot of Iowans live in our nursing homes Which is a very large growing population here that's being consolidated by private equity firms as well as farmland what I want is I want freedom for my

neighbors.

So let's talk about the agricultural side

first

of all.

What drew you to that at such a young age to say I want to have my own land and I want to

do this because, again, you're a young man, you were younger then, but you're still a young man.

It was difficult then.

Yes, it was.

Yes, it was.

So what spurred you to do

that?

Well, I was a little bit of a nerd in school for agriculture.

And one thing that I noticed was that as farmers got older, their land was

being transitioned into private trusts or revocable trust agreements.

A lot of the time that's because the older farmer is getting ready for retirement years, but his kids are gone.

They've left Iowa, whether it's because of our high cancer rates or better job opportunities.

They are teachers in Colorado now, or they're construction workers in California.

They're not coming back to the farm that their fathers and grandfathers and mothers and grandmothers

fought and bled and sweated for.

And this farmer wants to hold on to his land, but it ends up in these private equity firm, or excuse me, in these revocable trust agreements by multinational corporations.

I saw that in the 1980s, less than 1% of farmland in Iowa was under some kind of trust agreement, corporate trust.

Today, it's one out of every four acres.

25% of all farmland is in some kind of trust or corporate agreement.

I saw it as me having an opportunity to get on the last train out of here and get my hands on land before it's all gone and it's all gobbled up by the corporations.

I met an old man, his name was Les Geier.

He's unfortunately no longer with us, but I told him I wanted to buy his land and he worked with me on it.

That's really what it came down to is I wanted a place where I could put my feet into the dirt in Iowa because I was born here.

I was raised in Northeast Iowa.

I'm the only candidate on the ballot that was born and raised in Northeast Iowa and has been here my whole life.

I want to put my feet in the dirt and fight for the community that raised me.

You're talking about the products that are raised by Iowa farmers and it is very different from the days where and it wasn't that long ago where a family

grew or raised whatever they needed on that parcel of ground.

Well, that is not the situation now.

How did it get there, first of all?

because that helps us determine how do we turn it around in the way that you suggest.

Sure.

So back in the 80s, we had the farming crisis.

The messaging around it was get big or get out.

And so we saw this broad expansion of acquisition of farmland by those that had money.

We saw an exit from farming from those that didn't have the money to expand into some of these larger international markets, which started to coalesce around corn, soybeans, and pork.

And that's what we've seen is just, you know, that monocrop of corn soybean rotation and then pork production.

A lot of that is for international supply to China, to wherever else.

And we've really forgotten about what made Iowa Iowa.

We were the breadbasket of the world.

I remember learning about that in school.

How much wheat or oats do we grow anymore?

We grew six million acres at one point.

Now we grow two or three hundred thousand acres.

That doesn't mean that we don't need as many oats.

We saw the Quaker Oats Factory in Cedar Rapids.

All their oats come from Canada.

Why are we doing that?

Why are we, why are we paying for oats to come from Canada?

We can grow it here on some of the best land in the United States.

So the way that we got there was through this

free market deal that was not a good deal for regular working class folks or the local economies of Iowa.

And now we have a massive agricultural industry that is dependent on undependable markets.

And what I mean by that is look what happened with our pork production, well, you know, or our soybean production.

China and some of our biggest purchasers have decided to go other directions in other countries to acquire their produce.

What does that do to the farmer here in Iowa that's got all of his eggs in one basket?

for a manner of speak.

What I don't expect is I don't expect us to turn on a dime.

We have an agricultural structure here in the United States and in Iowa, which has been pretty static for a number of decades.

It's what these farmers grew up and have spent their whole lives doing.

I do believe with this transition of farmland to the next generation, we also need to transition to how we operate in the agricultural economy and the agricultural markets.

And that means diversification.

It means production for domestic use and domestic management.

Manufacturing produce we're coming up to a point and I want to be part of making that change

What role then does the federal government play you as a member of Congress in getting people to make these changes because No farmer very few farmers Work without the government being involved.

That's right And I trust that's at the government's suggestion and encouragement, but often it comes with payments, etc.

And so

Is it the federal policy that is driving what it is that an individual landowner does and is that how you can affect change or by what method?

So I've got a couple policies and I'm open to more as well and in deliberation and conversation, especially with those that are on the ground that want to make this shift or understand this shift.

Some things that I'm calling for is parody price flooring, right?

It's something that we practiced.

100 years ago, it was very successful.

We moved away from it for this more free market consolidation deal that we got now, which is not a good deal for the average farmer.

But I believe that we should have some kind of guaranteed price that the farmer can count on that he can look at and say, okay, I'm producing this product for my local economy, for the state, the state's national food security, and for international relationships and trade.

But I need to know that I'm going to be guaranteed at least this

this return on that product, not just so I can deal with manufacturing and production of the product and the growth of the product, but also pay my own bills.

Farmers are strapped penny to penny a lot of the times, and they deserve that kind of security.

So I'm a proponent of parody price flooring.

I am also a proponent of bringing back national strategic reserves and having more deliberate purchasing power by the federal government, directly to farmers to encourage

production of specific products.

Everybody's probably, well, maybe not the cheese caves.

I don't know if anybody heard about that.

We had a milk surplus decades ago.

Government bought a bunch of it, turned it into cheese.

That's where you got the government cheese, you know, which helped out impoverished families, families on indigenous tribal lands, things like that.

So it was to the government directly intervene, kept that market price where it needed to be while fulfilling the needs of those that were less fortunate.

I'm also a proponent, if I get in there,

I will be carrying on Thomas Massey's bill, the Prime Act, which will lessen federal regulations and stipulations on small producers like meat packing, meat lockers.

They're inundated by federal standards that are applied to large meat production facilities, and that makes it impossible to be competitive or grow at the local level.

So I'm a big proponent of loosening those unnecessary regulations on local producers.

Dave Beshaw is our guest.

Mr. Beshaw is an independent.

You'll find him on the ballot.

One of four candidates in the November general election for Northeast Iowa's second congressional district and we'll continue the conversation with Dave Beshaw in a moment as Iowa talking points.

The candidates continues.

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You're watching Iowa Talking Points.

The candidates.

Here again is Jeff Stein.

And we continue the conversation with Congressional candidate Dave Boucher.

He is an independent, nominated by petition and that process, which we'll talk to him about in a moment.

It's District 2, Northeast Iowa, again one of four candidates.

And I alluded to the fact that you ran as an independent.

That means you were not subjected to the

partisan process of primaries.

You and I first spoke on the Radio Mani months ago prior to all of that.

What do you have to do to get on the ballot?

I don't think it's easy.

No, it's definitely not easy, especially when we don't have a county by county party infrastructure that is able to harvest ballot access petitions for us, is able to schedule events that a candidate can just show up at because it's the Democrat or the Republican or the Libertarian Party event in that respective county.

I've been organizing for going on 15 years now.

I've built two successful organizations.

I've fought to bring a half a billion dollars into Iowa for broadband expansion.

I've fought to stop half a billion dollars in COVID money that was going to be used to build prisons across the United States.

I've done some pretty big stuff in my young life.

And the next thing that I noticed that needed to be done was giving independence a voice.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but to access the ballot, a candidate has to collect, I think it's

1,726 signatures across 11 of the 22 counties in our 13,000 square mile district.

But we didn't have the county party infrastructure.

Everything that we had to do was built from the ground up using my organizing expertise as well as what I've trained and developed.

others within others.

Not only did we reach the required signatures, but we achieved over 200% in not just 11, but all 22 counties in this district, even little old.

Was it worth County up in Northwest of the district?

You know that I think they've got 13 14,000 people in the whole County We still got to our 200% there as well because we wanted to be sure that we wouldn't run into issues like some of the Libertarians have faced or other respective third-party challenges have faced where the Democrat and Republican infrastructure has

effectively tried to get them off of the ballot in many ways successfully.

We wanted to make sure that any attempt to get us off the ballot was going to be unsuccessful.

So we built the infrastructure.

In talking with candidates from one of the parties, they have indicated how hard it is to get signatures.

And that is with the institutional help.

And so I can only imagine the focus that has to be given

when you don't have all of that.

So when we talk about your election to Congress as an independent, there are a few independents in Congress, would you caucus, and I've asked libertarians the same question, would you intend to caucus with one political party or another?

for are there enough independence to in essence become, well, we don't know the November outcome, but to become their own caucus.

I would not caucus with the Democrat or Republicans.

And forgive me, I really don't care if I'm not on the bubble gum chewing committee.

At the end of the day, they will have to come back to me and the people of Northeast Iowa for our vote on these things.

And I do intend on working with other independents.

If we can get three, four,

five independents in there that will be enough to break the the the duopoly that we see that passes all these things that nobody likes who likes the giant omnibus spending bills that are thousands of pages long that nobody knows what's in them not even the congress members they'll have it introduced and they'll vote on it within a couple hours they did not read that bill uh with independents we can stop that stuff we can force single issue bills and we can force votes on other things that we want to address as well campaign finance reform

universal healthcare, term limits, marijuana reform, whatever it may be, we can force these single issue bills so we don't end up with something like a massive COVID recovery bill that has $60 million for a Venezuelan democratization program in it.

Why was that in there?

Why?

I think American people love to know that, but we'll make sure that that stuff doesn't happen anymore and we get Congress moving as it was designed again.

Now you mentioned obviously your work on the farm as a young farmer as a community organizer You're also a musician.

Yes,

and you've toured the country and worked for some people Give us a sense of and this may be an unfair question.

Sure Give us a sense of your viewpoint and you worked for Senator Sanders and one of his presidential runs

Is there a broad viewpoint that Dave Beshaw has?

Because again, if I said you were a Democrat or a Republican, that doesn't fully answer the question, but it gives people at least a little bit of a talking point.

In addition to what we've discussed on issues, give us a sense based on your background and what you've done of

of your worldview that you'd take to Congress.

Yeah, so I grew up working class poor, patches on patches.

Both of my parents worked at the local welding and fabrication shop until the shop

shut down and they lost their jobs.

My mom went and picked up a couple jobs working at the gas station in the nursing home.

My dad found work wherever he could, whether it was odd jobs working on cars or at the turkey plant until that burned down.

If I go into Congress, I'll be going in with a perspective that almost nobody in Congress that's made it there has ever had.

In our 250-year history, less than 2% of Congress has ever been from the working class.

That means that just a tiny fraction

of people that have ever been elected to Congress are actually from the plurality of what the...

America is, which is working class.

So that's one perspective I'll bring in.

As an independent, I did work for Senator Sanders, not because I prescribed to everything that he says or believes in, but because of his consistency and his trustworthiness.

I think that that's something that is very rare in Congress these days, definitely rare in the Senate.

I looked at Bernie and I thought, you know, I don't agree with this guy on everything, but I trust him.

And I know that what he says, even if what he believes is an opposition to my

beliefs, I know we're just two Americans that disagree on something and we can work from there because I know where he's at.

With a lot of elected members, I don't know where they're at.

It's APAC or another billionaire PAC talking through their mouth or some foreign agents that they're advocating for.

I know that wasn't the case with Bernie and I know that me working for Bernie turned some people off.

Tough, you know, I mean it's it's the reality.

I trusted the guy I am also a musician.

That's how I got into politics was music actually Back when I was in high school.

I was a punk I was in the punk music scene just angry and angsty about the world and the economic conditions of my family because of the failures of government from both sides Bill Clinton was responsible for the Wall Street crash when he deregulated the banks and Got rid of Glass-Steagall

Bush got us into a massive war, which I thought that's all that government was when I was a small kid was...

government's job was to fight wars, but it's much more than that.

I discovered Phil Oaks and Pete Seeger and Anne Feeney and Utah Phillips, these musicians who were also kind of punk, but they were folk labor musicians.

And I discovered the union that way and joined the union at 17, traveled around the country playing the old labor songs to bring that back, which is something I think we've forgotten as a nation, the universal language of music and how that brings us all together.

Define working class, and the reason why I'm asking it is I ask other candidates when they say something like tax the rich.

Well, what does that mean?

Right.

Just so everybody understands, when you say working class, who are you talking about?

I'm talking about all of us.

I believe there are only two classes.

There is the working class, which is the plurality of all Americans, and then there is the elite ruling class, which is a very small concentration of people at the very, very top.

you know even if you got a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank or maybe you're a millionaire because what does a million bucks mean in this inflated economy you're still working class if you go to work there's a small handful a sequestered group of people at the very very top who do not make a living with their with their hands or their heart or their minds they what they do is they extract from the rest of us to

pad their aisle-rich lives.

And that's what I mean when I say working class is we're all in this together.

This myth of a middle class, some aspirational thing that if you step on enough of your sisters and brothers and others' heads that you can attain this ladder of growth and success, you are still part of the oppressed.

And so I'm fighting for the working class in totality.

And I believe the middle class is a myth to keep us on some aspirational path of upward mobility that still leads to indefinite servitude, too.

That small group.

Again, the definition created by those in the elite.

That's right.

To keep things the way they are.

That's right.

He is Dave Bushaw.

Mr. Bushaw is an independent on the ballot in Northeast Iowa's congressional district.

It's district two.

You go to DaveBushaw.com for all the information.

You stay here after this break for even more as we continue the conversation with Mr. Bushaw as Iowa Talking Points.

The candidates continues.

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Watch all the programs in the Iowa Talking Point series online at IowaTalkingPoints.com.

Iowa Talking Points, the candidates, continues with Jeff Stein.

And we continue with Dave Bouchard.

Mr. Bouchard is a candidate for Congress.

There are four names you'll see on the November General Election ballot in Northeast Iowa's second district.

He is running as an independent.

DaveBouchard.com is the website.

I mentioned...

four candidates independent libertarian republican democrat

yes

all four of the candidates are doing this program and so i ask very similar questions and here's the one that each of them will get including you distinguish yourself from the others separate yourself from the others on the ballot when i see four names and go to vote uh what's the difference

Sure, absolutely.

And I'm glad that there's four names on the ballot.

That embodies the American spirit that I think that we've forgotten as a country.

We should have more than this left-right duopoly.

What distinguishes me from the other candidates?

First and foremost, I'm the only lifelong Northeast Iowa in on that ballot.

That's just a fact.

The Democrat, Lindsey James, was born, raised, and educated in Oregon and California her entire life, moved to Massachusetts for a short stint for work, and then came to Iowa in 2015.

for a job.

Three years later, she decided to run for the state legislature in a very safe Democrat district of Dubuque.

She won.

She's been in there in the minority for eight years.

Not really accomplishing nothing.

I mean, nothing against her.

It's about the party.

power.

They just can't get anything done there, the Democrats.

And now she's running for Congress.

Joe Mitchell, he was a state representative in southeastern Iowa.

He was defeated in a primary by Jeff Shipley, who is a Republican representative who I respect very highly.

And Joe moved up here to Clear Lake into one of his properties that he built.

one could argue to run for this seat after Ashley Hinson announced that she wasn't going to be running.

So Joe has lived up here for less than a year.

Rick Stewart has lived in Northeast Iowa on and off.

He's also lived internationally.

But I'm the only one that grew up here poor in West Union, Iowa and Fayette County and the far rural north, north of I-20, you know, up where there's, you know, not even a lot of union density, you know, I'm hours away from an H&M or a target, you know.

And I've been here my whole

life.

I put my feet down in states.

So I'm the only one that's been here my whole life.

I know the issues because I lived them and I still live them every day living in my trailer out on my farm trailer that I built out on the farm that I bought first generation.

And that's a big one that separates us.

Another thing is that I have a direct political and organizing experience on the ground.

I have

I've been to the White House three different times on invitations from different presidents, the last two administrations.

I've sat down and negotiated with the folks in charge of the state and local fiscal recovery fund during the pandemic and fought for deliverable gains for Iowans, real tangible things to come back to us.

I've been in these fights directly.

I've won things and I've done it from a point of not not party power infrastructure.

I've done it as a community member rallying other community members to

to stand as one and fight for what we deserve.

So I've got the experience on the ground that I don't see from the other candidates.

They've been in legislative positions or appointed positions of power.

I've kicked down every single door that's come across me because people like me were not supposed to be in politics, you know?

Politics is difficult, it's hard, they say.

It's pretty black and white.

As one of my field coordinators would say, it's black and white.

It's not as hard as they want you to believe it is.

Once you get your foot in the door, which I credit Senator Sanders for helping me do, he hired a lot of working class people, dishwashers, target workers.

And he gave us an opportunity into a very small world, the political world, a very small world that we're not normally allowed to be in.

And we're not asking for permission for a seat at the table.

We're done asking.

I'm here to say we're taking it.

There are a number of issues that will come up during your time in Congress, and if you serve multiple terms, this one is going to be front and center, social security.

And I only said if you serve multiple terms, it should have been fixed long ago in my view, but if you'd like to take care of it in term one, that'd be fine.

If nothing is done by 2032, it is insolvent to the point that there are mandatory cuts.

So that's not that far down the road.

So

what should be done to address that issue so that the promise made is able to be kept?

Easy one is eliminating that income cap that they've got.

They've got it kept.

Your income is only taxed for Social Security so high.

I think that billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, some of those that pay

almost a zero effective tax.

We often pay more taxes than folks like them.

They should be contributing their fair share into the system, which a lot of their workers that built the wealth that they hold rely on.

It's not Elon Musk's wealth.

It's not Jeff Bezos' wealth or Nancy Pelosi's wealth.

That wealth was generated by working class people that deserve to have some kind of sustainability, especially into their twilight years.

They need that security.

They should demand that security.

And I think that should be done in totality.

We shouldn't have older folks cutting their pills in half just to make sure that they can get by.

We shouldn't have older folks going to the doctor and paying a darn thing on medical expenses.

You've designated and dedicated decades of your life to building this country and being a productive member of our society.

Me as a young person, I'm 31 years old, I'll tell you right now, I got no problem paying a little bit more if it means that you have the same security.

when you're older that I want when I'm older.

I will pay it.

I don't want you to be struggling with medicine, food, housing.

You should be able to live the American dream all the way until you're done.

So you just used another phrase of fair share and I'm just wondering what that means in the current system or what does it mean to you when you say they're not paying their fair share?

Is that a matter of reforming the tax code?

Is it increasing brackets?

You mentioned the cap but I'm just curious as to what you define as fair

share.

What I define as fair share is nobody should be able to while they

have employees that aren't allowed to have bathroom breaks and are getting paid starvation wages to be able to uh acquiesce a a trillion dollars you know that doesn't sound very fair to me and i can't say exactly what it is that needs to be done about that but i think that we need to entertain a conversation not ideologically position ourselves in the right over here in the left over here and just not talking you have tax the rich over here and you got you know

kill the death tax over here what are these slogans even mean let's have a conversation and and look at the reality the reality is

Half of Americans cannot afford an unexpected $500 expense.

That is a fact.

We have a trillionaire and we have a handful of billionaires that control and monopolize the majority of our major industries here in the United States.

We have an S&P 500, which should be called the S&P 493 because the top seven are all AI and speculative technology that if that collapses, the 493 that is trending at consumer rates less than Europe right now, we're in a little bit of trouble.

You know, we've got all our

and that that figurative basket I'm talking about I want a conversation and as an independent going into Congress I believe I can contribute to forcing that conversation whereas either side doesn't want to have it because if they can keep us fighting over the issues without solving them they can keep raising money off of us hey donate to me donate to me I'll fix your problems you know why did issues like abortion get dangled over Democrat voters heads for 30 years Obama promised it he had a majority House Senate

presidency.

Biden promised it.

House Senate presidency in 2022.

Why didn't they do it?

You know, why haven't Republicans done what they say they're going to do?

It's because they they maintain their power by keeping us fighting and not realizing they are the common enemy.

Dave Basha is our guest on Iowa Talking Points' independent candidate.

Congress, Northeast Iowa's second district, davbasha.com is the website.

One more segment with Mr. Basha, and we'll get to it after this short break, after which Iowa Talking Points, the candidates will continue.

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The candidates.

Here again is Jeff Stein.

Our final segment with independent candidate for Congress Dave Basha, Northeast Iowa's second district, one of four candidates on the November ballot.

Earlier in the program, you were talking about housing and restrictions on broad ownership.

How does that work in a situation where let's say that I own, you mentioned trailer courts.

Let's say I own a trailer court and I want to sell it.

You're limiting who I would sell it to or how will this work in a functional way?

Sure, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I would be limiting who you would sell it to.

I don't believe that trailer courts should be able to be monopolized by private equity firms.

Right now, recently in Congress, you had fights back and forth.

Even our president said, I want to ban private equity firms from monopolizing single-family housing and some of these housing options.

And he said, you know, they shouldn't be able to own more than a hundred of them.

Well, then you had Congress come out and say, no, I think it should be more like it was a 250 or something like that.

I think that the American people know the correct answer is zero.

zero.

Like housing is for us, you know, a single family housing, it should not be monopolized by someone that has untold sums of money coming into a town like Owine or coming into a town like Waterloo and buying up all the available property, controlling what goes on the market and what doesn't so they can manipulate what the rent or mortgage prices are on those things when everybody needs a house.

Like I said, it is one of the only things that working class people have to to attain equity that leads to up

Like it's going to appreciate for him just owning that land.

I bought my land and it's tripled in value, you know, over just the last 10 years and unfortunately that.

price will go up and it'll be harder for young folks to get in there.

That's not because I'm owning the land, it's because a small handful of multinational corporations are controlling and consolidating that land and manipulating the prices.

I believe that we keep these massive corporations and these private equity firms from monopolizing and we'll have more competition in who's going to be able to compete so then we don't have folks with a bunch of money just grabbing it up before

your eye can get it.

So that takes us back to, for example, you as a landowner.

Yes.

Because you have land that can impact our food supply.

Yes.

Which I think is my feeling.

It is fair to say that's a national security issue.

Yes.

You have no problem with the government telling you you cannot sell it to this party or this party at some point when you divest of it.

You have to sell it to this party over here even though you're getting less money.

If it is a national security issue, yes, I do.

I think that the security, the domestic security and food sustainability of the United States should be of our biggest concern right now.

And so, yes, I would say that even in times of war, which I would say that we're in a number of actual wars, regardless of what this person says it is or isn't a war.

But I believe that we are also in an economic war and we are in a war again.

peer adversaries on the national or international scale is to

Who is going to be the guiding principle of light?

What country is it going to be leading into the 21st century?

I know back in times of war before we had victory gardens and we had other mandated protocols and practices of the American people for the sustainability and the health of our nation.

I'm an America first kind of guy.

Like we got to worry about us before we can go out and solve all the rest of the problems in the world.

So yeah, if it's for the betterment of America's national security,

Absolutely.

I say that we need to all come together and make sure that American can be as healthy and productive as possible.

I am making a presumption that members of Congress get information in briefings that the rest of us don't.

Yes.

So that being said.

we are in a military conflict currently in Iran and it may still be going in one form or another when you take office in January.

What is your view about that issue broadly given what you've just said?

We need to get out of that conflict.

We've got wars to win at home and we shouldn't be

chasing imperial conquests abroad.

You look at my Democrat and Republican opponent, the Democrat will say, you know, Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.

They're not trying to build a nuclear weapon.

This is the most ridiculous piece of propaganda that we hear.

That fellow that we ended up assassinating at the beginning of the war.

For the last 20 years, he's been saying, no, Iran, we do not want to build military nuclear capacities within our borders.

to develop nuclear for energy?

Sure.

I think anybody should do that.

I used to be anti-nuclear.

I'm becoming more pro-nuclear energy these days now that technology has advanced.

But the whole premise of going into Iran was it was all lie.

It was all light.

And if people will remember, I know we suffer from American amnesia a lot, but if people will remember, it was lies that got us into the Afghanistan-Iraq war.

It's the same damn playbook and they're playing it over again.

And I'm not going to forget about it.

I'm going to keep speaking out.

So get out of Iran, get out of Ukraine, the failed war over there that is killing tens and tens of thousands of young Ukrainian men.

It's a failed conflict.

We need to come to a peace agreement there, not send more military munitions and

You know contribute to the unexploded cluster bombs will be sitting in those fields for some kid to step on 20 years from now And we need to cut off all funding to Israel plain and simple defensive and offensive weapons.

We're done.

We're done with it

We're almost done with this program But I want to give you the opportunity in our final couple of minutes since you are asking Northeast Iowans to elect you to Congress I'll let you make your case to them directly

Perfect.

Hey, folks.

So I hope that I can earn your trust and support on November 3rd.

I'm not saying that we're going to agree on everything.

If we did, that would be pretty weird.

But what I can promise to you is that what I say is what I believe.

And even where we do disagree,

We're just two Americans that disagree.

APAC's not talking out of my mouth.

Billionaires aren't talking out of my mouth.

And no foreign influencers are talking out of my mouth.

This is just me and what I believe.

And if we can understand that and have that level of trust that we're just two Americans that agree or disagree on issues, we can work through them because I trust you.

So I hope you'll go to davebashaw.com, support my campaign.

We don't take Super PAC money or nothing like that.

So anything you can pitch in will be much helpful.

And yeah, look forward to building

this independent movement together.

Thank you.

Making the run, that's no small effort for any candidate and for taking the time today.

Best of luck in November.

Appreciate you.

Dave Basha is an independent on the ballot for Northeast Iowa's second congressional district.

Again, his website is davbasha.com and that brings us to the close of another conversation with folks who are on the November election ballot.

Thanks so much for being along for this edition of Iowa Talking Points, The

Candidates.

This has been Iowa Talking Points, The Candidates, produced by

Studio 5 at Mud Advertising and totally Iowa Media.

For more information on this series, go to IowaTalkingPoints.com

It is always a privilege to welcome on the news line a return guest He is dr. John lot dr. Lot is an economist and founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center They are online with all manner of great information at crime research dot org dr. Lot.

Good morning, and thank you for taking the time sir.

Oh Good morning.

Thanks for having me on

I want to ask a question that is a little different than what we've talked about before.

I've indicated you are an economist and you hear about all of these things with Canada now throwing tariffs at the U.S.

and from an economist's viewpoint.

What is the state of things these days?

Is it something that we should have some confidence in?

Is there too much instability?

Again, this is off the point of our schedule topic, but again, with your insight, I wanted to get a sense about your view about the economy broadly.

Well, I think the economy generally is pretty strong.

I mean, in terms of real incomes increasing,

Obviously, inflation is still about, I guess, like 2.7% or something like that.

But, you know, when you look at the job market, the jobs, you need to kind of compare it to, you know, the composition of the jobs that are there.

So under the Biden administration, the jobs that were being created

and filled were basically for people who are non-native Americans.

They don't break it down by how many of those were illegal aliens versus those who immigrated legally.

But most of the jobs were for people who weren't US citizens.

That's changed radically.

You know, we've had this drop in the number of jobs for people who are non-citizens, and I assume most of that drop

are for people who are illegal aliens.

And so what increase in jobs that we've had has basically been for American citizens.

So I think that's that's one major change that's occurred.

I think, you know, as far as the economy growth goes, there's been reasonable growth.

I would have done the taxes differently than than the Trump administration did.

I would have

One of the things Trump promised during the campaign was to cut the corporate income tax down to 16% from 21%.

And my guess is if he had done that, we would have seen a huge inflow of investment from around the world that would have increased productivity for workers and would have seen

much higher growth than we've been seeing, which has been okay, but it would have been more similar to the type of growth that we saw during his first term when he cut the corporate income tax from about 35% down to 21%.

But I guess those types of political decisions are above my pay grade on those things.

So I would have done that differently, but I think overall they've been doing very well.

And, you know, people may, I think people want, you know, Trump made promises that I wish he would have phrased differently, like he would have reduced prices.

I don't think anybody, any economist really thought we would have deflation.

We have a slowing of the inflation rate that was occurring.

But that's different.

And I think it's kind of gotten people's expectations to a point where they just couldn't be met on these things.

So, you know, I suppose that's it.

And of course, anybody who owns stocks, they've seen a substantial increase in their real wealth over the last year and three quarters.

But obviously not everybody's in that boat.

Such a good excellent thorough analysis, especially since I hit you cold with it capital gains though I mean I know the capital gains if you hold it for more than one year it is taxed at a lower rate than regular income but Here in farm country that's still a pretty big bite when you are you are selling property like that and I'm just wondering if that should be another focus of

of potential reform while Mr. Trump is still in office?

Well, I mean, I would.

You know, one thing that economists focus on a lot is double taxation of income.

So you go and earn your money and the government taxes it and you go and you invest it could be in stock or could be in a farm or something.

And, you know, let's say to stock for a simple example, what happens is that the company pays taxes on it, but it's not like the company owns the things, it's individuals that own it.

And so, you know, let's say you got a dollar in profit, well, they pay 20 cents on the dollar for just the federal income tip.

corporate income tax, and then you pay income taxes on that.

So if you end up paying with state and federal income taxes, you can get something near 50% in some states.

So you're down to 40 cents left on that original dollar that you made there.

And that's if they give you a dividend.

If they pay it in terms of

uh, you know, they keep it in the company and the value of the stock increases by, uh, the amount of money that they've kept there, uh, then you pay the capital gains on that.

And so, you know, if you had 20% capital gains, so you've, you're down to 80% after the federal, uh, corporate income taxes are paid, and then you got to pay another 20% just, uh, on top of that for just

federal, uh, capital gains, you know, you're, you're down to something over 60% then from what the original profit was there.

And so, you know, if you have a, if your farm is incorporated or whatever, you have the same types of issues, uh, they're going to be there with the, with the taxes.

And so, you know, while they focus on the, uh, capital gains tax that's there,

What they ignore is that, you know, there are multiple fights that occur at different levels for those taxes.

I mean, if it were me, I'd get rid of the corporate income tax completely.

I'd get rid of these capital gains taxes and just say, okay, you got income.

You know, figure out what levels of taxes you want to have on people's income.

But a lot of this is hidden.

And people don't see, don't see kind of the full picture that's there.

That's such a great point.

Income is income.

Just tax it.

Figure it out.

Makes it much simpler.

Dr. John Lott is our guest.

He is an economist and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, crimeresearch.org.

He joins us live on News Talk 1540, KXEL, and again to show Dr. Lott's versatility on issues.

He had a piece published at realclearpolitics.com about a week and a half ago.

Headline Supreme Court just gave mail-in ballot safeguards a chance.

It's hard for the average person to kind of follow the bouncing ball on this because it just keeps getting kicked back and forth.

But this is a very important form of security if we want our elections to have any credibility.

Am I right?

The amazing thing is just to look around the world and just see what an incredible outlier we are on this.

There's no country that has mail-in ballots like we see in a number of states in the United States from neighboring Illinois for you to Colorado to California, Oregon, Washington, where they just automatically send out

mail-in balance to everybody who's registered to vote.

In fact, most of the world doesn't even have rules like we have for absentee ballots.

If you look at Europe, for example, there are 47 countries in Europe.

39 of them completely ban absentee ballots for people living in the country.

The other eight that allow it

All, none of them will send you the absentee ballot in the mail.

You have to go in person and show a government-issued photo ID before they will give that to you.

And six of those eight countries limited to only people who are in the military or who will be in the hospital at the time of the election.

And even then, they require

third party sworn verification that you will not be available to go and vote.

They just won't take your word for it that that's there.

And, you know, whether it's countries from Mexico or the rest of South America or, you know, other places around the world, there's similar restrictions.

Mexico completely bans absentee ballots for people living in the country.

And

And some of those countries used to have rules similar to what we have here in the United States, but they discovered massive fraud that was occurring.

In France, for example, they had rules for absentee ballots similar to what we have up until 1975.

And one of the things people have to understand is how hard it is to catch

a lot of this vote fraud that occurs with absentee ballots.

So in France, they only discovered because some people got guilty consciences.

But for decades, literally hundreds of thousands of votes were being purchased at elections each time.

And the problem with it, and the reason why it's hard to get, is that

Both the buyer and the seller of votes have an incentive to go and hide that that's occurring.

You know, people seem to think that, you know, vote fraud just doesn't happen in the United States.

We have a long history of massive vote fraud that's occurred in the United States.

So, for example, I'll just give you one example.

And that is, we didn't have secret ballots.

in the United States until relatively recently.

The first state to move to secret ballots was Kentucky in 1880.

The last state to adopt secret ballots was South Carolina in 1950.

And what used to happen is there'd be a ballot box up at the front of the room and people would drop in a colored piece of paper based on what party that they were voting for.

And the parties would stand on either side of the ballot box, and they would watch to see what party you voted for.

And then they would go and pay people based on how they voted.

And in fact, the number one reason why we moved to secret ballots was to prevent vote buying.

And when states moved to secret ballots, there was about a 10 percentage point drop.

in voter turnout, because it turns out some people, when they weren't getting paid, just didn't go and vote.

You saw an immediate drop in voter turnout when they couldn't get paid.

In fact, a number of states would not allow absentee ballots when they moved to secret ballots.

And the reason was, is they were concerned that people could then go and show

the parties how they voted with the absentee ballot and could get paid and and also even the states that allowed absentee ballots banned ballot harvesting because the thing is you could show somebody how you voted and then you could go and give them the absentee ballot so they would be sure that it would be turned in and they would pay you then for that.

And people forget why we have the rules that we do.

But over time, it became easier to get absentee ballots.

It became possible to go and get them in some states that had banned it.

And you have a number of states now that allow ballot harvesting to occur.

And so anyway, but this court case, I think,

It's just kind of off the rails in terms of the judges that they, the title of the case that the Supreme Court just ruled on was Trump v California.

And yet it was brought in, it was brought in.

Boston, Massachusetts.

And the reason why is that they were essentially shopping around for the judges that they thought would be most sympathetic to their case.

And, you know, the reason why the Supreme Court came to the decision that it did a couple weeks ago was not that on a final decision on the merits of it, but what had happened was

You had Democratic states had gone to a federal judge in Boston to go and ban the federal government from even thinking about how to deal with vote fraud in mail-in ballots.

And this Supreme Court said, look, you can't, this is too early.

You have to wait until actually the rules have been put down.

You can't stop.

the executive branch from thinking and talking about how to prevent vote fraud.

And so they stopped the injunction that the lower courts had put in place.

And then basically about a day later, the judge reinstituted the ban.

But now the US Post Office had put out its rules.

that were there and now the Trump administration is back before filing another emergency appeal because one of the things that the Democrats have been hoping for is just to I think they'll lose eventually I think they know they'll lose eventually on this and I can go through the reasons but

But they just want to try to delay it until after the midterm elections right now.

Well, and the first states, there are quartet of states that allow early in-person voting starting this very Friday.

So obviously, once you start, once you start voting, it's hard to change the system in between.

Give us a sense in our remaining two or three minutes.

Give us a sense of why you think the Democrats ultimately will not prevail on the merits in this

suit.

That's right.

Well, look, people understand, I think that the states have a lot of discretion over the rules that they have for voting.

But there are a couple of issues.

One is

The federal government has some role in dealing with federal elections, but the post office is a federal entity.

Even if states can go and set up the rules for how people are going to vote in their states, they can't go and tell the federal government how they have to operate federal entities like the post office.

And, you know, it's very clear.

that the post office, one of the things it's charged with is to prevent fraud.

What's happened is we have the 1960 U.S.

Civil Rights Act that was set up in order to try to prevent basically southern states from diluting black votes.

And so the federal government

had the power to go and others to go and look at all the documents from elections that were there.

The states had to retain all their records for 22 months afterwards.

And so the Trump administration has said, look, we're worried about you deluding people's votes.

If you have a legal voting here, that reduces the value of U.S.

citizens who are voting.

And so we want to go and look at your voter registration list.

And the Democratic states have been saying, we're not going to let you look at them.

We're sorry, we're going to ignore the 1960 Civil Rights Act

that's

there.

And my guess is they know they're going to lose on this.

They're going to have to provide the voter registration list.

But they've gone and gotten injunctions.

uh from uh democratic judges uh around the country uh to prevent the federal government from looking at that legislation will gradually move forward on it but it's going to be after this year before uh that and so but because uh i think they'll have to turn that over and because

I think the federal government can at least make rules for dealing with fraud, dealing with the U.S.

Post Office.

I think they'll lose on that eventually too.

Always great insight from Dr. John Lott and again Crime Prevention Research Center, his organization crimeresearch.org and the piece we've been discussing on ballot safeguarding that was published at realclearpolitics.com about a week and a half ago under the headline, Supreme Court just gave mail-in ballot safeguards a chance.

Dr. John Lott, always a privilege, sir.

Thank you so much and we'll do it again soon.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Take good care now.

And Dr. Lott was kind enough to join us live on the news line.

On News Talk 1540 KXEL, where Iowa comes to talk.

News Talk 1540 KXCL, where Iowa comes to talk.

The Iowa State Fair is over.

The new school year is well underway, but those two things come together in our next segment.

Dozens of scholarships were handed out to 4-H troops who exhibited their work at the State Fair.

We're going to get some perspective this morning from Gail Castillo, who is the superintendent for Iowa State University Extension's 4-H exhibits building.

Thanks for being with us.

Well, thank you for inviting me.

This time last year, back in September of 2025, that was probably when some of this year's State Fair projects were starting to form in the minds of those 4-H students.

How do you put all that dedicated work and planning into perspective as you think about it?

You know, it is really amazing.

It's easy to wonder what's our future going to look like and have a lot of questions.

And I have the joy every August of being in that 4-H exhibit building and seeing what 4-H members have been doing the last year in their 4-H work.

Things that they have decided they wanted to learn more about, maybe a workshop they attended they got excited about, but they have set goals.

They are making decisions about the resources they have available to them.

They are learning amazing things and I know our future is in such good hands because our young people are learning how to take steps toward achieving their goals.

You know, we have young people learning about planting food on the moon.

Several plant the moon exhibits and that's an educational program that people can participate in.

We have young people working in robotics.

We have young people learning to craft beautiful craft work, quilts, clothing.

They're taking care of themselves.

They're learning conservation and being good stewards of the resources around.

And so for me, it is amazing what the members learn in the time that they have and present as what they've been able to accomplish.

For me, it's just hope for our future.

You know a lot of this learning as you describe is self-directed and that seems like it's particularly important to getting the kinds of results because instead of being told hey it's 10 o'clock we're gonna open up this book and read about this topic this is the students pursuing the things that really interest them on their timeline and in whatever way is most appropriate to their circumstances.

Yes as a lot of people know but some people may not know.

4-H is administered through Iowa State University as our land grant university in Iowa.

And so our role is to take information and education from the university out to the people of Iowa, make resources available to the people of Iowa.

And that means our youngest citizens are our youth.

And so we have a lot of workshops that can be done on campus.

We have

workshops that come out from campus to counties.

But we also have young people who within 30 plus project areas decide, I really want to learn more about ag and natural resources, specifically conservation and how to make sure that my family farm will be here for me when I get to that age to take it over.

They are able to make the decision.

Hey, I have access to some woodworking tools, and I want to learn more about how to build with different types of woods.

And we have beautiful exhibits that are done.

Plant the Moon, like I said, that came out of an educational program, but a lot of the learning, the members are choosing on their own something they may have started in school, but maybe not had time to go as deep as they wanted.

And so we're a great non-formal learning organization that comes alongside of our public, private and home schools to help provide additional opportunities.

We're talking with Gail Castillo, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach 4-H exhibits building superintendent about the

recently completed state fair and the educational value for the 4-H members who participated in the fair with over 2,400 youth exhibitors and

If there's somebody, let's say middle-aged who really hasn't paid any attention to what's going on in 4-H since they were that age, maybe they were in the program and have gotten some separation, they're not there anymore, they haven't been through the 4-H building at the State Fair, what would they see if they'd walked in last month that wouldn't have been there when they were that age?

Well, first and what so many people commented on,

We have brand new displays throughout the building and so it just brightens up the entire building.

Many people commented it looks different but I can't quite pinpoint.

We're so grateful to the State Fair Board for providing new showcase so that we can display all the education.

So that was one.

Two, our Iowa 4-H Foundation came alongside us

and help us tell the story of Iowa 4-H.

So not only the 3,300 exhibits of learning that the members did all around the building, we had a panel of 4-H history, how it started, and then panels of how it's going, education that is happening across Iowa right now, 4-H fishing clubs, youth leadership.

clover kids, civic engagement, our youngest members learning to give back to the community around them, mission moon, learning what will it take to have people go to the moon and live and work there.

So many amazing programs that can be done out in counties and in addition to all the learning by youth, I think I'm most proud of being able to showcase

This is what people can do and learn in 4-H.

It may not look the same as when I was a member or when other people were members.

The kids are excited and they're learning and they can't wait to.

We just started a new program here and hundreds and hundreds have enrolled already because they can't wait to start the new year.

I mentioned that there were a lot of scholarships that were awarded based on these projects at the Iowa State Fair, these exhibits that 4-Hers had the chance to display.

Could you talk about what you saw when it came time to give the news that those scholarships were being awarded?

You bet.

You know, it's so exciting to us that we have several colleges and departments at Iowa State University.

They will send staff and and so we just point people in the in the direction of the exhibits.

And and it is the actual colleges and departments determining.

Scholarships that they want to award if a member enters their department or their college at Iowa state.

And so our college of liberal arts and sciences college of ag and life sciences.

Health and human sciences.

and then our Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, and they all send staff to look at all the exhibits, read the write-ups, what the members weren't learning, and they have a chance to then, their decision, they have come to us asking for the opportunity, they award based on what they see in that member's learning,

Something that is forthcoming in their college, it's either a major and studies being done in that major, or it might be kind of on the cutting edge of, this member has a really great idea.

I want to show them that we're encouraging this.

So, they might see a scholarship on a red ribbon.

And a red ribbon exhibit isn't a bad exhibit.

It just means the member had more to learn.

But the college is saying, hey, I recognize something here, and I want to encourage you to keep going down this path.

And so we had piano compositions awarded, sports photography displays, a child development exhibit on sign language, poetry.

We had some digital storytelling.

We had brewing microgreens for chickens.

Young people are passionate about their livestock and we had a number of chicken exhibits awarded and I love it because, you know, chickens are one, a lot of municipalities allow.

It's a small animal.

They're easy to care for.

Lots of uses for chickens.

We had a young man 3D print a planter part that he needed.

and make that work.

A young person did a 3D model of an animal cell.

Just really amazing and incredible.

How to make homemade granola and the things that went into that and where that food was sourced.

So many other things.

Constructed Norwegian dress.

A young person wanted to honor the heritage and constructed a dress.

A health exhibit on ACL tears in females and why it's different for females than in males.

Upcycling sweatshirts, they drew so many comments.

We had young people upcycle sweatshirts and so we had Iowa State and Iowa Side by Side that they had taken and used other resources to make it really a one of a kind showpiece.

A leadership exhibit where

young people partnered with our good friends at Iowa Select Farms to do meals in a bag with their pork loin giveaways that they do Thanksgiving, Christmas time at every near.

Welding, we had a young person weld a dog out of rods.

So many people stopped to take pictures of that dog.

It was pretty incredible.

Again, robotics, trivia games.

just so many amazing and unique exhibits.

I don't even know where they come up with these ideas.

talking with Gail Castillo, Superintendent for ISU Extension's 4-H exhibits building at the Iowa State Fair.

And I mentioned that this might be the time of year where those State Fair participants or those 4-Hers, whether they did go or didn't go to the State Fair this year, are thinking about next year.

Just a word, Gail, as we wrap up about what kinds of things you'll be working on to make the 2027 Iowa State Fair even better, even more exciting for 4-H participants.

You bet.

We're still working on the wrap up and getting all of the pieces put together to report out to our funders.

We're working on a new impact report.

We're trying to gather data of those dollars members have been awarded on both the building and the livestock side.

How many volunteer and staff hours it takes?

to put on the state fair for just us in Iowa 4-H.

We're also working on an evaluation with our communication participants.

Their words, what they get out of our live events at the state fair, what they're learning about, how to put a presentation together, and the skills that they learn.

Are they able to be nervous but work through those nerves?

Are they able to think through?

and present their ideas in ways that other people can understand.

And so at an initial glance, I've got some really great comments and feedback from the young people.

We also, of course, always are looking at our rules, making sure that they make sense for today, that they make sense for the young people, and that we're following industry standards.

And it's not just a rule because it's always been a rule.

You know, I think some people are like, well, that's just, they just always do that.

Sometimes we do as adults, we get stuck in a rut, but we do work really hard in 4-H to always be looking at how can we make sure we stay relevant for today's youth and today's Iowa.

And so, as we wrap up, we are continually working toward 2027, as I know our members are.

You know, those young people who love to restore tractors or thinking about the next quilt or what they're going to learn next about their livestock and or even what kind of livestock they want to exhibit.

I don't often get out into the barns to see that, but I do get to see the posters and the displays they develop as a result of their work with their units.

Gail Castillo is Iowa State University Extension's 4-H exhibits building superintendent.

Thanks for being with us.

Thank you so much.

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This is the station where Iowa comes to talk.

News Talk 1540 KXCL.

And as KXEL Live and Local continues on this Tuesday, time for today's RFD 1540 conversation.

And for that, we draw upon the insight as per custom of Dustin Hoffman, supervising editor, lead farm broadcaster Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.

You hear their reports nine times each weekday here on KXEL.

And Dustin joins us here for this extended conversation Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Sad news on Saturday from Southwest Iowa.

the death of a very well-known individual who not only was active in state organizations, but also national organizations and global missions, etc.

And you've been very careful to always preach safety on the farm.

And here's somebody with a half-century of experience and yet fell victim to a farm accident.

So it can happen to anybody, but give us details on this if you'd be so kind.

Yeah, that we are, you know, kind of all morning the loss of Southwest Iowa farmer Ray Gasser was a nominee or sometimes our candidate for the job of the Office of Ag Secretary.

The first year I was down here in 2018, Jeff, you know, we had that roundtable discussion on KXEL on my first summers here.

You know, he was a good friend to people.

Everybody in Iowa knew who he was.

Politicians knew who he was.

He was definitely an advocate for the industry of farming, and he didn't care whether you were a large farmer or a small farmer.

He just wanted to see the industry survive and see the business survive.

you know the few encounters I had with him you know he was always a very gracious person always care obviously you could tell very caring about the industry and making sure that everybody had a fair shot at it and you know also making sure that rules were in place for you know the good of the of the industry.

Um, he didn't like red tape.

He didn't like all the, uh, sometimes barriers that farmers have.

And he was a very strong and very vocal advocate.

And as you mentioned on various state and even national organization boards, um, you know, where a conservative association comes to mind, uh, as just one of many.

And, uh, again, very passionate about, but yes, I've got word on Saturday that he, uh, Mr. Ray Gasser passed away as a result of a farm accident.

And, you know, we, we've talked about this many

and we had planned on doing the fall one very soon, Jeff, but now to have something like this happen again as a result of a farm accident to see this man leave us so soon, goes to show you that no matter how many years you've got, no matter how experienced you are, things can happen.

and they're called accidents for a reason.

You know, then that's just it.

The details do not matter.

It's a matter of fact of just being aware of what's going on around you.

And even when you are, and that's the tough part, Jeff, even when you are and you're practicing every single piece of patience and caution that you can, things can just happen.

Equipment can break.

Someone else can cause the problem.

You know, you just don't know.

And so again, it's about being aware.

It's about being careful.

It's about doing everything you can and realizing that sometimes even if you do everything you can, it's still out of your hands.

And again, it was sudden news, surprising news because again, Mr. Gasser was still so active in politics and policy and again on the farm.

And as you say,

There are so many different things that can happen.

This is huge machinery we're talking about and climbing on to clean something or fix something.

And again, I'm not making any reference to what happened to Mr. Gasser.

We have no details and the family deserves the privacy on that point.

But

there are so many things that can happen and again this is big machinery it's not like the old days and you have to as you said quite accurately you have to be careful for yourself but others involved as well and no matter how careful you may be things still happen and this is the time of year especially we're getting close people are getting equipment ready harvest is on the horizon

And those are long days and long nights, and that's when mistakes can happen.

Exactly you know we've made the comment so many times that harvest is a marathon and planting is a sprint and it very much is and both of them take their own kind of endurance you know days and weeks on end of long hours in the combine and hauling equipment with trucks and whether it's augers getting into your bins or pits that you dump into whether it's a semi truck a gravity box a green card a tractor a tillage machine a combine the corn

head, a bean head, there are so many moving parts and there are so many ways that things can happen.

I mean there are so many pieces of equipment that no matter how fail safe they are and you have to you have to go back yes equipment is bigger and weighs more and is stronger but there are also more safety features than we've ever had before.

And we've known that.

I mean, we've all known about farming accidents.

I remember the first one I knew of was when I was only four years old in Minnesota.

And so these things happen.

And the thing is you can do everything you can, but you can't prevent them 100%.

And yeah, that's why I think we've always stressed is do everything you can to prevent them.

Whether it is getting your equipment making sure it's maintained making sure maybe have a professional Double-check your equipment if you're not quite sure that something may be wrong.

There's a lot of technicality that is involved You know we we were at farm progress show and you learn about how much is automated now and how much

computers control some of this stuff.

I mean you have a computer in a combine that is being controlled by a camera on an auger that also controls the tractor and the grain cart next to it.

That's a lot of responsibility on a camera that has no experience, no real-world experience.

Yes, it has technical programming and it's amazing what it can do.

But what if that camera gets something blocking its eye?

What if something in that camera has a bad wiring or a hiccup?

You've got to be able to take over in a heartbeat.

And so that's what it comes down to is you've got to be careful.

You've got to put every effort you can into it.

And as you said, the details, we don't know.

And I don't care to know unless it's once someone wants to share it with me from that family.

And I'm not going to ask.

That's not the point.

And getting privacy is the main thing.

But like I said, there's so much you can do.

the combines especially when you look at all the blades all the knives there are so many ways to get injured and I mean we're not even talking just unfortunately passing away from an accident but you can be maimed for life from some of these.

The knives and some of these pieces of equipment are so sharp that even when they're not moving, if you're not careful around them, you can be seriously injured.

You can have the boom on a digger or a disc drop and cause an injury.

There's pinch points everywhere.

There are so many things.

Even those who are in livestock raisers, you can get hurt by a steer.

There are so much out there.

to be careful for and we we've said this and I wish I could I could say this all day long Jeff but there are so much that can be prevented and there's so much unknown and so be aware you gotta keep your head on the swivel and that's why I know another thing we've talked about a lot is getting rest is important because if you're exhausted it's no better than when you have been imbibing drinking alcohol under the influence of any kind of medication legal or illegal that kind of delay

is all it takes to be a split second between surviving an accident and unfortunately not surviving one.

So get the rest you need.

Make sure that everything you are, if you're taking medication that it's being done correctly and that your body is being taken care of, hydrate yourself.

There are ways to take care of yourself.

You're the most valuable piece of equipment that's out there during the harvest season.

And it seems tried when someone is leaving to go out and do their job, somebody left behind at the house says, okay, now be careful.

and we joke about it.

Well, of course, I'm going to be careful.

But that takes very different meaning in the wake of any tragic farm accident.

But again, one with an individual so many people had contact with.

And actually, when you mentioned the candidate forum prior to the Republican primary for Ag Secretary, that's the first time I met you.

You had just started.

And we cosponsored that event

at the upstairs room in the building you folks had been using as your office at that time.

And I'd had other contacts with Mr. Gasser over time and unfailingly positive comments that we have heard.

You should be so lucky, any of us, to have that kind of good reputation and have people remember you that way.

So as people are finally getting ready to enter into harvest with this as the shadow hanging over things this year, a high profile individual losing his life doing what he loved, what's the final watchword or a bit of advice that we might be able to plant in people's minds?

You know, I only met Mr. Gasser a few times, handful of times we talked, but he was always, like I said, gracious to me.

And I think

I'm gonna presume and I hope I can be forgiven for that But I think that he would want you to remember to be safe and to make sure you're doing everything you can and and to Want the farmers to have a successful harvest but to remember that their safety their health their family safety and health it's paramount to absolutely anything that you do in that field and I think all of us want to think that I mean, I think that I mean I've seen seen accidents that happen so quickly and to do be

To be that close to something that dangerous is a tough experience I mean I've never told anybody this on the air before Jeff But I was almost a victim of a farming accident and it would happen in split seconds and there was nothing Anybody could have done and I thought I was safe and that's and that's the thing I was safe technically But the whole fact of the matter is it doesn't take much for something to go wrong.

It's beyond our control

and bad things can happen.

So be safe out there.

Whether this had happened over the weekend or not, I would be urging you to be safe.

But as you said, this definitely casts a shadow over the harvest season and hopefully gets everybody's attention that hopefully this can help prevent somebody from getting hurt again, whether it's in the combine, whether it's checking the grain bins, whether it's, you know, just driving the truck out to the field.

Just make sure you're watching every avenue because anything can happen at any time and make sure that you're doing everything you can to get home safely every night during this harvest season.

And I don't think it's a stretch in any way that Mr. Gasser and the Gasser family, if the tragedy that befell them leads one person to think twice or be a little more safe, I think that they would be pleased that their devastating loss.

would lead to someone not suffering that same fate.

Dustin, thanks so much for the insight.

You've been a strong advocate for safety at least twice a year in these segments.

If not more, for good reason, we'll do it again Thursday, sir.

Sounds good, Jeff.

Dustin Hoffman, supervising editor, lead farm broadcaster, Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network for this RFD 1540 conversation on a Tuesday on News Talk 1540 KXEL, where Iowa comes to talk.