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2020: Democrat LA Mayor Stopping In Iowa

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(Via The Hill)


Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) will stoke speculation that he is considering running for president in 2020 when he makes several stops across Iowa next month.


Garcetti will travel to the Quad Cities in April to deliver a keynote address at the Scott County Democrats’ annual Red, White and Blue Dinner, his political spokesman said.


Later, he will make stops in Altoona, at a Carpenters Union training facility, and Des Moines, where he will take a tour with Mayor Frank Cownie (D). Garcetti will also stop in Waterloo, where his wife Amy has family.


In a statement, Garcetti spokesman Yusef Robb strongly hinted that the second-term Democratic mayor would begin pitching himself in the first-in-the-nation caucus state as an anti-Washington solution.


“The thrust of his visit is to support his fellow Democrats in the run-up to the midterms, but Mayor Garcetti is also eager to hear from people how we can help each other move ahead despite the extreme dysfunction in Washington,” Robb said in an email.


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Iowa

Sibling Bonds on Trial: Linn County Judge and Iowa DHS Under Fire

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A Linn County juvenile case is raising alarms over how Iowa’s child welfare system treats sibling rights and judicial impartiality. At the center is Kristin Mitchell, who regained custody of two of her younger children in 2025 and is now fighting to keep them connected with their brother, WG, who remains in state custody.

Mitchell says WG was adopted through Iowa DHS into an abusive home, and that both she and her son disclosed the abuse in 2022. Their warnings were ignored, and her visits were cut off. WG was later removed from that adoptive home and placed back in DHS custody. Her daughter, however, remains under the custodial care of an adult living in the same household where WG was removed, raising further questions about oversight and child safety.

The dispute deepened when DHS first issued Mitchell a Family Notice in June 2025 — a legal recognition that she is a qualifying relative — then told the court she was not one. On August 11, a Linn County judge denied her motion to intervene in WG’s case, mischaracterizing her custody history and failing to address federal sibling-preservation law. Mitchell filed a motion to reconsider, highlighting the contradictions, statutory misreadings, and due process concerns, including evidence that the presiding judge and DHS staff viewed her private Facebook stories during deliberations.

Her filings also point to potential conflicts of interest: an attorney who once represented the father of her younger children now represents an adoptive mother opposing her position. And in a striking generational echo, the same DHS worker who handled Mitchell’s case as a child — which separated her from her siblings — is now assigned to WG’s case.

Mitchell argues that this case is not only about her family, but about whether Iowa DHS and Linn County courts will enforce the state and federal laws requiring sibling bonds to be preserved. “Hope is not a legal safeguard,” she wrote. Without intervention, she says, there is no enforceable mechanism to keep WG connected to his siblings.

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Iowa

RICO in Iowa: Update & Call to Action

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🔗 GoFundMe: Stand With Will

Section I: RICO Case — New Escalations, New Evidence, Same Broken System

Since the last article, Billy D. Frazier IV’s RICO case has taken a sharp and highly publicized turn. What began as a local battle over due process and disability rights has evolved into a multi-pronged federal challenge — aimed squarely at corrupt state actors, retaliatory government agencies, and procedural manipulation by the Iowa judiciary.

In late August 2025, Frazier filed a new emergency motion in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, seeking an immediate restraining order and injunctive relief to block DHS and child support enforcement from launching new retaliatory actions mid-litigation. The motion documents:
• A fraudulent child support claim naming a non-father as the biological parent of Frazier’s child;
• A new child abuse assessment against the child’s mother, Brittany Taylor Dockery — just months after a similar case was closed;
• A broader pattern of proxy retaliation, false reporting, and administrative abuse tied to Will’s federal civil rights complaint;
• 17 years of documented state retaliation, escalating now as discovery looms.

“These actions lack any legal basis,” Frazier writes, “and constitute proxy retaliation against Plaintiff through his child and the child’s mother.”

Among the legal grounds cited are the First and Fourteenth Amendments, ADA protections, and the constitutional right to family integrity. But perhaps most importantly, Frazier is pushing to extend these protections to all co-parents and children connected to the case — a bold move that could pave the way for class-action-level impact.

He has also filed a Notice of Case Manipulation, preserving his appellate record and alleging coordinated interference by local agencies seeking to delay or sabotage pending motions. A screenshot from his official court filings, submitted via Iowa eFile, shows multiple new pleadings — all with detailed documentation of what Frazier calls “procedural ambush tactics.”

But new filings reveal something even deeper: evidence that Chief Judge C.J. Williams may have predetermined the outcome of the case — issuing rulings before documents were even filed.

Key Evidence: Ruling Issued Before Motion Was Filed

Will Frazier now presents clear procedural proof that Chief Judge C.J. Williams ruled against him before his filings even existed.
• The judge denied Motion to Amend (Doc. 96) at 8:23 AM on August 18, 2025.
• Frazier’s Fifth Motion to Amend (Doc. 101) wasn’t filed until 11:11 AM on August 20, 2025.
• A second filing, Pro Se Notice (Doc. 102), was submitted three minutes later at 11:14 AM.

Screenshots of PACER & NEF records confirm:

A motion was denied two days before it was even entered into the court system.

What This Means for the Case

The record shows more than just aggressive dismissal — it shows judicial predetermination and potential obstruction of a pro se litigant’s constitutional rights.

❌ Dismissed Before Fully Heard

The dismissal order included boilerplate language on judicial immunity, effectively shielding nearly all defendants from civil liability.

❌ Locked Out from Amendment

On August 18, Judge Williams denied any future amendments — even though none had been filed yet. This procedural lockout suggests that any future legal effort was already doomed.

❌ Live Filings Ignored

Despite filing a new amended complaint and notice on August 20, both documents appear to have been automatically disregarded.

Legal Argument Moving Forward

Will’s legal team — or Will himself, pro se — may argue that:
• The court pre-judged the outcome, violating due process.
• By denying motions before they were filed, the court refused to consider live filings on their merits.
• This establishes judicial bias and supports his broader RICO claim of systemic retaliation.

The case is now under appeal at the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, where these procedural irregularities may weigh heavily in determining whether the dismissal stands.

Section II: The Eviction Fight — A New Battlefront, A Call for Backup

While Will Frazier battles state retaliation in court through his RICO case, he now faces a devastating new front: housing displacement. Frazier and his family have been served with an October 31st lease termination — a move he says is direct retaliation for his activism, legal filings, and growing public visibility. His disabled neighbor, also a co-plaintiff in a separate lawsuit, has reportedly been targeted as well.

In a public post that quickly began circulating across Facebook, Will wrote:

CITIZENS ASSEMBLE — I NEED YOUR HELP

“To control the people, you control the housing. For too long, families have been silenced with the threat of retaliation. Too many have lost their homes just for speaking out. Too many have been crushed under retaliatory rent hikes while landlords ignored repairs and pocketed the profits.

This fight started with an OWI, but what they tried to bury has only grown. It’s now RICO. It’s in district court — back in the lion’s den, where corruption was exposed — and the battle has expanded into HOUSING. Retaliation, harassment, fraud, and abuse: it’s all coming out in discovery.”

Frazier also announced that he has filed a joint lawsuit with his family and his disabled neighbor, naming the landlords and housing authorities responsible for years of unsafe conditions and retaliatory behavior. The goal, he says, is not just justice for himself — but for every tenant who’s ever been silenced.

“If you’ve faced issues with HUD, Cedar Rapids Housing, or landlords like Rick & Beth Alger — reach out. Your voice matters. Now’s the time.”

Now facing the loss of housing, a custody threat tied to potential displacement, and barriers to relocating due to ADA status and housing voucher restrictions, Will has launched a GoFundMe campaign to rally public support:

🔗 GoFundMe: Stand With Will

He closes with a powerful call to collective action:

“This is bigger than me. It’s about breaking the system of retaliation and giving the people back their power.

Please keep this going. Share it. Talk about it. Don’t let them keep hiding behind the same tricks.”

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Iowa

Twenty40 Challenging Linn County for $9 Million in Assessments

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Twenty40 (made famous by Chad Pelley) is challenging Linn County for the assessments on approximately $9 MILLION worth of properties through 3 different petitions in Linn County court! While they’re using Bradley & Riley for this, the attorneys handling it are not the same ones Mr. Pelley is using against me.

We WANT them to win this one. I raised the issue of inflated property tax assessments in one of my earliest filings in Chad Pelley v. Bailey Symonds et al. It’s a real problem, and one that negatively affects many of us.

They’re taking on a big fight with this one, and if they win — it could benefit everyone. If Linn County is held accountable for over-assessing even one property, it sets a powerful precedent. It opens up the door for the rest of us to challenge our own property tax assessments more effectively.

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