Iowa, my home state, is a pretty nice place. It’s a countryside of rolling hills, and fields, and woods, and lakes. The people are generally friendly, a bit saner, a bit more laid back than those on the coasts. Politically, it’s purple. It can go red or blue in any given election.
It went for Obama in 2012, but it has had a Republican governor, Terry “Braindead” Branstad, just about forever, it seems. He generally is unknown nationwide because there are lots of even crazier teabagger governors from other, more interesting states. although it’s kind of weird that poor women in Iowa in need of an abortion need a note from the governor
Governor Branstad
But this isn’t about that. In an incident that’s very reminiscent of the old Sarah Palin vs. her ex-brother in law the state trooper, Branstad has fired a state trooper named Larry Hedlund, because Hedlund wrote a letter, I guess to his supervisor, saying “hey, we caught the governor red handed speeding like crazy and breaking all sorts of traffic laws like passing a schoolbus full of innocent and fragile little schoolchildren, and maybe it would be cool if he didn’t do that again.”
Of course, they say that’s not what he’s being fired for. He’s being fired for using his work car on his day off. Nobody gets fired for using the company car on their day off. Also, it’s because he was using the company car on his day off that he was able to nail your ass.
As usual, it’s not the crime, but the coverup. If Branstad were to just say “O.K., you caught my limo driver speeding, I was late to an appointment, sorry, governoring is hard work, heh, heh,” everybody would be cool with that. Everybody speeds. Maybe not like that, but they can identify.
But to fire a State Trooper, because he caught you being a rude driver because really there’s nowhere in the State of Iowa that you needed to be in any hurry to and you were just speeding to be a dick, that’s low. That’s unforgivable.
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