Iowa don't need no chicken shit tort lawyer

One big difference I've noticed between city folk and farmers is the latter's ability to withstand almost any assault to the olfactory senses. No matter how gag inducing the odor may be they manage to smile and joke, "Smells like money to me," as they heartily wolf down breakfast. It's a cultural divide that cannot be mitigated by sensitivity training, affirmative action or any of the other social nostrums peddled by the meddling class.
A rhetorical inquiry, "What makes the grass so green?" is answered matter-of-factly, "horse shit".
Generally both sides think this divide to be both harmless and humorous but there are limits to everyone's patience and if one is seeking public office one might think about cultivating tolerance for the other point of view just as the other viewpoint is gagging down it revulsion to  tort lawyers.
Usually it's been the GOP that has had the misfortune to nominate gaff prone candidates for critical senate races but the first view many Iowans saw of Democratic Congressman Bruce Braley was a YouTube video of Braley forecasting an ominous denouement for Iowa and the county should he not be elected to the senate. “You might have a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school, never practiced law, serving as the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.”
Zounds! Just as the dust had begun to settle from that faux pas a story went out that the good congressman had threatened a lawsuit against a women whose chickens had trespassed upon his vacation property. As the Washington Post reports,

This spring, Pauline Hampton’s chickens roamed onto Bruce and Carolyn Braley’s vacation property on tranquil Holiday Lake. Hampton said she did not know this until she walked over one day to offer Carolyn a dozen fresh eggs. To which she said her neighbor replied, “We aren’t going to accept your eggs — and we have filed a formal complaint against you.”
Carolyn took her complaint to their neighborhood homeowners’ association board meeting in May. Her husband, Bruce, then called the association’s lawyer, Thomas Lacina, to say that he believed “chickens are not pets and should not be permitted at Holiday Lake,” and that he wanted to “avoid a litigious situation,” according to an e-mail Lacina wrote. Braley denied that he threatened a lawsuit.

How cordial!

Holiday Lake bristled at his tactics. “They are not neighborly,” said Hampton, a mental health therapist who uses the hens as therapy animals. “In Iowa, we are very well known for being friendly, and if one has a problem with another, we always talk to them face-to-face. This kind of floored me.”
Another neighbor, William Nagel, who sits on the homeowners association board, said, “Buddy, we’re here in Iowa. We talk like men here and we act like men. Usually, a man’s word is like gold. A handshake is a contract. Neighbors are neighbors, and if you’ve got a problem with your neighbor, you talk it out.”

Yes, but the odor? Smells like money to Mrs Hampton. Not the sort of thing to get a congressman's nose out of joint.
That's just beginning of the injustices that have been visited on Braley. Readers can imagine the indignity of a congressman having to launder his own towels in the House gym during the government shutdown. And that was after he had paid an annual membership of $260.


Recent polling suggests that Iowa voters don't need a chicken shit tort lawyer. Braley has gone from the odds on favorite to trailing Joni Ernst in the latest CBS News/NYT/YouGov poll.