Governor Terry Branstad and legislative leaders were "a few inches away" Monday from agreeing to a state budget, but were "miles apart" on their competing property-tax plans, according to a key Democratic leader.

The Iowa legislature this week entered its seventh week of overtime, with less than three weeks remaining to come to resolution and avoid a state-government shutdown.

Iowa Senate Appropriations Chair Bob Dvorsky (D-Coralville) announced a key development Monday morning in reaching a budget deal that could bring adjournment to the 2011 legislative session. Senate Democrats agreed to spend less than $6 billion in the budget year that begins July 1, which is nearly $400 million less than they originally proposed.

I am aware of how difficult it is to accept certain truths of our times. Doing so requires letting go of deeply held norms that provide us with perceived security. Refusing gives each of us plausible deniability as truant citizens when it comes to our individual civic duty to remain vigilant. Unfortunately, freedom does not protect itself.

Americans refuse to admit that our governance is not what we think, that there is a terrible underlying fraud afoot, and that we are manipulated on a daily basis by powerful forces working in tandem to keep us uninformed: the two political parties - Democrats and Republicans - and the mainstream media.

All the mainstream news is choreographed to keep us in one camp or the other, and by doing so, the illusion is maintained that we are politically participating on an informed basis. When critics of the two parties' ideologies, policies, etc. surface, the media is able to squelch it by declaring such critics as kooks and extremists as a means of marginalizing the data and keeping it from us.

All year long, the mainstream media systematically deliver sanitized but highly divisive information specifically designed to drive our opinions in one narrow political direction or another, depending upon which broadcasters you patronize, whether watching, listening, or reading.

It is the proverbial easy button. It keeps us anesthetized to the slow creep of authority over our daily lives, to the dual legal system fraudulently operating under our very noses, and to the abdication of the U.S. Constitution in favor of United Nations dictates and global governance via such organizations as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the G20.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney officially kicked off his 2012 campaign for president Thursday with a speech at a windy farm in New Hampshire, a day after a new poll showed that he is still the candidate to beat in Iowa.

But Iowa Republicans on Thursday cautioned Romney not to skip the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

"I think that this is a very wide-open race," said state Representative Steven Lukan (R-New Vienna). "I think Iowa Republicans look at their candidates extremely hard. This is not a state where rock stars exist. Iowans want to see you in the pancake house, and they want to see you at the VFW steak fry. You have to engage them one-on-one. ... I think anybody that chooses to skip Iowa does so at their own peril."

Debt is slavery ... or at least indentured servitude of the worst kind. That looming mortgage, the high-interest credit-card debt, the short-term car loan - these are the forces that keep people from breaking free and taking action.

Ironically, debt begets more debt. According to FinAid, the average U.S. student-loan debt for a four-year-private-university graduate is nearly $36,000, and $24,000 for a public university. Throw in that first car loan and maybe a mortgage, and suddenly you're staring at hundreds of thousands of dollars in demoralizing claims on your future income.

At this point, most people figure: Hey, I'm already in debt up to my nose; might as well get in up to my eyeballs and buy a new plasma screen on credit.