Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was in Iowa Sunday afternoon to deliver her endorsement of U-S Senate candidate Joni Ernst in person. “She’s going to set ’em straight,” Palin said. “She’s a soldier. She’s a hard-working farmer. She’s a pistol-packin’ Harley rider.” Ernst is one of five Republicans vying for the G-O-P’s U.S. Senate nomination and Palin announced a month ago that Ernst was her choice.

Palin told the crowd gathered in West Des Moines Sunday that Ernst would not be “co-opted” by the special interests in D.C. and she urged Ernst supporters to go out and “brag her up.” “Time is short. We don’t need a whole lot of touchy-feely, compassionate, ‘kumbayah’ singing around the campfire when it comes to these campaigns,” Palin said. “We need the fighters. We need you all to fight for the right folks that we need in D.C.”

The newly-decorated Ernst campaign vehicle was parked outside Sunday’s event, featuring the phrase: “honk if you want to make DC squeal.” That continues the theme of a campaign ad in which Ernst talked about castrating pigs as a farm girl. “Coolest campaign bus in the nation. I think it’s gorgeous and it says it all, about castrating those hogs, you know…That ad that she put out, right. That right there,” Palin said, snapping her fingers. “I mean, it got people’s attention because it’s like: ‘Whoa! Nobody’s going to push her around.'”

Ernst thanked Palin for the endorsement, saying she’d be honored to be the first woman Iowa elected to the U.S. congress. Sunday’s event was organized by ShePAC, a political action committee formed in 2012 to help elect conservative Republican women.

(Radio Iowa)

No serious injuries were reported following a two-vehicle accident Sunday night on Interstate 80 in Cass County. According to dispatch reports, the accident, which temporarily blocked most of the westbound lanes, happened at around 11:24-p.m., near the 68.5-mile marker westbound.

The Iowa State Patrol covered the investigation. Additional details are currently not available.

Today (Monday) is Worker’s Memorial Day. Sixty-one Iowans who died while on the job were honored at event Friday in front of the Iowa Worforce Development office in Des Moines. Of the 61 who died in Iowa last year, about half were killed in industrial or farming-related accidents. Iowa AFL-CIO president, Ken Seeger, says there’s a problem in Iowa’s workplaces-a lack of safety inspectors. “Some people don’t want regulations on corporate entities and frankly I think that we need a few more — otherwise we wouldn’t have 61 Iowans dying. We can do better, but some people are choosing not to,” Seeger says.

About half of the deaths happened in industrial or farming-related accidents. Fifteen of the victims suffered heart attacks while at work.   “It represents a lot of families who have lost a wage earner, lost a loved one, whose lives have been inalterably changed,” Seeger says. “This is the 21st century, you’d think we could do better. Todd Osborn of Nevada attended the event to honor his brother Justyn Jarnagin, who died over the summer while working at a construction site.

“He’s a really good man, he worked hard, just had a newborn, was full of life and suddenly had it taken away from him. We’re here to honor his memory,” Osborn said. Unions in Waterloo, Dubuque, Cedar Rapids and Sioux City will host memorial events today (Monday) for those who died last year.

(Radio Iowa)