A flyover from this week's top heartland stories including:

Missouri GOP in-fighting in full swing | In Iowa there’s something in the water… poop | Missouri Medicaid enrollees trapped in a nightmare | Kari Lake leaks a tape | CO House ditches Minority Leader Mike Lynch | Iowa anthem antics | Ted Cruz’s Democratic challenger in Texas | Missouri Senator Nick Schroer is a joke 

SOURCES: The Heartland Collective, Colorado News Line, Missouri Independent, New York Times, Iowa Capitol Dispatch

1. Throw The Bums Out! 
   1. https://missouriindependent.com/2024/01/25/missouri-senate-gop-warfare-escalates-with-suggestion-of-expelling-freedom-caucus-leader/
   2. The factional fights making the Missouri Senate a public spectacle are bad enough that Senate Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughlin told reporters Thursday that she’d vote to expel the leader of the Freedom Caucus from the chamber.
   3. Speaking to the assembled editors and publishers from the Missouri Press Association during their annual visit to the Capitol, O’Laughlin noted that expelling a senator takes 23 votes of the 34-member chamber.
   4. “Two years ago, I said with 23 votes, you can throw somebody out of here,” she said. “And I would do it today.”
   5. Asked who she meant, O’Laughlin named Sen. Bill Eigel.
   6. “I would have to have 23 votes and get 23 votes, I’ll have to get some Democrats to vote for it and then I’ll have to give up something big,” O’Laughlin said. “So….everything here is a trade off you know.”
   7. Soon after the remarks were reported on social media by The Independent, the door to the Senate Lounge, where O’Laughlin was speaking, opened and a Senate doorman said Eigel wanted to talk to her on the floor.
   8. 
       
2. Must be something in the water… sadly, in Iowa it might be poop
   1. https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2024/01/25/state-issues-several-fines-for-manure-violations/
   2. From article: The Iowa Department of Natural Resources recently fined several livestock operations and a manure hauler for infractions that ranged from failing to submit animal waste management plans to a manure spill that resulted from a train collision.
   3. The crash happened in June 2023, when an employee of Magnum Custom Hauling, of South English, was transporting up to 6,000 gallons of manure in Marion County.
   4. Employee Deal Keasling was operating a tractor that pulled a manure spreader on a gravel road south of Pleasantville when he approached a railway and noticed a train, according to a DNR order.
   5. “When he saw the train, he realized he wasn’t going to be able to stop, so he basically floored it,” said Janet Gastineau, a senior environmental specialist for the DNR.
   6. There is a bend in the road at the railway intersection and wooded areas nearby that might have obscured Keasling’s view of the train, which struck the manure spreader. Keasling’s certification to handle the manure had expired, the order said.
   7. No one was injured, Gastineau said, but an unspecified amount of manure went into nearby Coon Creek. 
   8. Magnum and Keasling were ordered to pay a $4,975 fine.
   9. The DNR also recently fined five livestock operations for failing to submit required plans to manage their manure, which helps ensure the manure is not excessively applied to fields:
   10. 
        
3. Missouri medicaid system seems to have been broken from the inside
   1. https://missouriindependent.com/2024/01/23/perfect-storm-missouri-advocates-decry-medicaid-application-delays-coverage-losses/
   2. Hannah Kaplanis applied to Missouri’s Medicaid program nearly two months ago, but hasn’t received any response from the state.
   3. Just shy of 18 weeks pregnant, she’s in need of prenatal care and growing increasingly hopeless. Aside from a free ultrasound in November, she hasn’t been able to access any care. She called Missouri’s Medicaid helpline earlier this month but had to hang up after waiting on hold for 45 minutes, and she is unable to apply for other insurance until she is out of Medicaid limbo. 
   4. “It feels like I’m doing motherhood wrong already, but it’s out of my hands,” she said. “I’m at a loss. It’s just a waiting game and that gives me anxiety.”
   5. Jim Torres, program manager for health insurance services at Samuel Rodgers Health Center in Kansas City, helped Kaplanis submit her application and has been checking its status. He said that he hasn’t seen “any movement on her most recent application that was submitted on Dec. 4.” 
   6. Kaplanis’ struggles are not isolated. 
   7. Missourians trying to enroll in or retain Medicaid — the government-run health insurance program for low-income Americans — report running headlong into the state’s increasingly-strained system. Interviews with advocates, applicants, participants and experts reveal increased pressure on the state’s capacity has intensified bureaucratic hurdles to accessing Medicaid, which include lost and missing paperwork, indecipherable state notices and marathon call center wait times.
   8. “I’ve been doing this with my organization for 10 years now,” said Saralyn Erwin, a marketplace and Medicaid coordinator at Northeast Missouri Health Council who assists with applications and renewals, “and this is the worst that I have seen it.” 
4. GOP Chair in Arizona Resigns After Evidence of bribe to Kari Lake
   1. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/politics/kari-lake-arizona-gop.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
   2. The chairman of Arizona’s Republican Party resigned abruptly on Wednesday, a day after the publication of a 10-minute recording of a conversation between himself and Kari Lake, a former nominee for governor, in which he appeared to offer a bribe to persuade Ms. Lake to drop her 2024 Senate campaign.
   3. In the recording, which was published by The Daily Mail, Jeff DeWit, the chairman, tells Ms. Lake that there are “very powerful people that want to keep you out” of the race, and suggests he is passing on a message from them. He says he had been told to ask her: “Is there any companies out there or something that could just put her on the payroll and give her — to keep her out?”
   4. Later in the conversation, which Mr. DeWit repeatedly urges Ms. Lake not to repeat to anyone, he starts to ask, “Is there a number at which — ” before Ms. Lake interrupts, saying “I can be bought?” He replies, “Not be bought,” but instead wait a few years before running.
   5. Ms. Lake brushed off the attempts, repeatedly telling Mr. DeWit that she was offended by the approach. “That’s immoral — I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror,” she says, according to the recording.
5. The Colorado House GOP has a new leader… wonder why?
   1. https://coloradonewsline.com/briefs/house-republicans-rose-pugliese-minority-leader/
   2. Colorado House Republicans chose state Rep. Rose Pugliese, a freshman lawmaker from Colorado Springs, as their new minority leader Thursday, a day after Rep. Mike Lynch stepped down following news of a 2022 drunken driving arrest.
   3. Pugliese had been serving as assistant minority leader.
6. Iowa Forced Patriotism In Schools
   1. https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2024/01/24/iowa-lawmakers-consider-requiring-students-teachers-sing-national-anthem-at-school-each-day/
   2. Iowa students would be required to sing part of the national anthem at school each day under a bill advanced Wednesday by a House Education subcommittee.
   3. Rep. Sue Cahill, D-Marshalltown, stood and led the room in singing the “The Star-Spangled Banner” during her closing comments.
   4. Cahill said she sang because “our Capitol is the perfect place to show patriotism,” but requiring the singing of the national anthem in school classrooms each day is not the best path forward as it would be “mandating patriotism for students.”
   5. “I think that’s something students choose and it’s something that they learn and they’ll learn it in other ways,” Cahill said.
   6. House Study Bill 587 would require students and teachers at Iowa public schools to sing at least one verse of the national anthem every day, in addition to singing all four verses of the song on “patriotic occasions” as well as at school functions or school-sponsored activities as determined by the district. Students and teachers would not be required to sing along, but would be required to stand at attention, remain silent and remove non-religious head coverings as the anthem is being sung.
   7. Private schools would be exempt from this requirement.
7. Allred Alright For Texas? 
   https://theheartlandcollective.com/2024/01/24/analysis-colin-allreds-chances-of-unseating-ted-cruz/
   1. Can Allred win? 
8. Missouri Dueling Club Opening Soon In Capitol Building Near You
   1. https://www.newsweek.com/missouri-republican-senators-duel-nick-schroer-1863838
   2. A ridiculous human being and MAGA stooge of a state senator in Missouri, who’s name is not important, offered a proposed new rule to allow for DUELING when the right wing snow flakes are insulted and get triggered
      1. His proposed amendment was posted on X, formerly Twitter, by Missouri Senate Democrats. It read: "If a senator's honor is impugned by another senator to the point that it is beyond repair and in order for the offended senator to gain satisfaction, such senator may rectify the perceived insult to the senator's honor by challenging the offending senator to a duel.
   3. What kind of duels? 
      Dueling pianos? Dueling banjos? Dual credit scholarships? Dual citizenship? Dual enrollment? 

Weekend plans?

Welp that’s it for this week. Stories in today’s show can be accessed at the Heartland Collective, Colorado Newsline, Missouri Independent, New York Times, Iowa Capitol Dispatch

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