Walker was at the Sheraton for a fundraising dinner benefiting the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank located in Washington, D.C. Branstad was among those attending the event.

Walker gained national attention earlier this year when he pushed a bill stripping some collective bargaining rights for public workers and requiring them to pay more for health insurance, among other things.

Among those demonstrating were Danny Homan, head of AFSCME Iowa Council 61; Ken Sagar, head of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; and Ed Fallon, a former state legislator and gubernatorial candidate.

The Heritage Foundation event was closed to the media, but a video is expected to be available online on Thursday.

Video (below) shot by Dave Devanney of Battlement Concerned Citizens appears to show Halliburton workers without respirators, although observers say breathing fracking sand can be very dangerous because it contains silica, according to a story in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

The Sentinel story quotes a Silt Mesa resident and former contract worker named Carl Mc Williams, who claims he was sickened by hydrogen sulfide while working on a Noble Energy gas well. Noble now acknowledges it is finding hydrogen sulfide in the majority of its gas wells on the nearby Piceance Basin, although the potentially deadly chemical was previously thought to be rare.

“They have been telling us all along that there is no H2S [hydrogen sulfide] in this area,” Devanney wrote in an email to members in which he also included a link to his Halliburton video.

David Neslin, director of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, told the Sentinel the state is investigating the Noble hydrogen sulfide situation. Both Halliburton and Williams told the paper they’re looking into the fracking sand emissions.

The contractor Mc Williams worked for when he claims he was sickened in 2009 was fined $2,000 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. A Noble spokesman acknowledged the company has been regularly encountering the gas ever since then, using “biocides and other methods to eliminate it.”

“It’s a concern, but it’s not one that we’re inexperienced in dealing with,” a Noble spokesman told the Sentinel.

The 34-year-old from Grand Island, Neb., and her husband, Robb, had tried to obtain an abortion last December after finding out their baby likely would not survive outside of the womb. The month before, Danielle’s water had broken unexpectedly, which resulted in the absence of most of her amniotic fluid around the baby. Doctors had told the couple their child would likely be born with deformities to the face and head and the inability to move its limbs, according to the Register.

But because Danielle had been pregnant since August 2010, and because the state law prohibits abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, the Deavers were denied an abortion and forced to proceed with the birth, which was followed immediately by their baby’s death.

Danielle described to the Register what it felt like to watch her baby girl, which the couple named Elizabeth, try to inhale.

I knew the answer, but I had to ask and asked them, “Is there anything …?” And, of course, he said, “No.” And I knew that, but there was just something about seeing her trying to breathe, that I had to ask.

And the nurse said, “Try to watch for when she stops so we can record the time of death.” 3:15 (p.m.), she died

According to the Register, the couple has one son, born in May 2008. Before that, they made previous attempts to have children, which ended in three miscarriages — something the Georgia and Virginia legislatures want to investigate — and possibly criminalize depending on the cause.

Similar late-term-abortion prohibition laws have been introduced in other states, including Alabama (PDF), Arkansas (PDF), Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa (PDF), Indiana, Kansas (PDF) Kentucky,  Massachusetts, Michigan,  Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi (PDF), New Jersey, New Mexico (PDF), Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas (PDF).

Video after the jump:

Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago Law School took particular exception to the ruling today; check out his and others’ analyses after the jump: