John Kearney is a retired philosophy professor who taught at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has lived in Waterloo, Iowa for the past six years.

I had a dream last night. An alien spacecraft landed in my backyard. The creature that emerged communicated through a device equipped with a keyboard and screen, much like a laptop computer. Overall, he seemed like a friendly chap. So, I invited him in.

After exchanging pleasantries, he told me he was a “reporter” from a distant planet called “Ogar.” He landed on earth to learn more about the United States political system.

I thought it valuable to listen to the questions and observations of someone who would hopefully represent a point of view free of agenda driven acrimony and confirmation bias.

Steve Corbin is emeritus professor of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa and a freelance writer who receives no remuneration, funding, or endorsement from any for-profit business, nonprofit organization, political action committee, or political party. 

Before we get too far into the new year, let’s review the immediate past, present, and future of America’s political, economic and social fabric.

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

“Today, we’re here to answer the most important of questions,” President Joe Biden said in Valley Forge on January 5. “Is democracy still America’s sacred cause? I mean it.”

There is that feeling I can get, maybe like a quiver, not something in my head, but in my whole body, when I hear words so striking, so uplifting, so clear in their articulation of truth, that I know I’ve heard greatness and grace at the same time. That’s how I felt watching the president deliver his speech last week.

I hope every American heard the president’s speech at Valley Forge. “This is not rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical,” he said. “Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time, and it’s what the 2024 election is all about.”

Screenshot of Donald Trump speaking at a rally in Newton, Iowa on January 12

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, most recently here. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

I have written before about the incredible shifts that have happened late in Iowa caucus campaigns. Front runners beware, I wrote in 2016 (and that piece was prescient).

In 2020 I suggested Iowa would surprise, and predicted Pete Buttigieg would be the candidate most likely to do it.

This time it feels different, for good reasons.

This column by Daniel G. Clark first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on June 28, 2023. Above: Detail from poster by Greater Muscatine Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Not finished in time for RAGBRAI, the 40-foot installation was dedicated on October 14.

One month hence, on July 29, RAGBRAI cyclists will dip their tires here, the seventh time Muscatine will have rolled out the red carpet—previously 1976, 1986, 1995, 2001, 2006, 2016.

Before paved roads, Iowa was famous for mud and muck. And no river-to-river Great Bicycle Ride, obviously.

Long before Interstate 80 was imagined, a coalition of town leaders mobilized to build the border-to-border road christened the Great White Way. Its course from Davenport to Council Bluffs passed through Muscatine and Fruitland. It bragged the fastest route across Iowa, even outpacing the Lincoln Highway (later U.S. Highway 30).

In April 1914, about 40 Muscatine “boosters” drove through the construction zone 100 miles to Oskaloosa, headquarters of the Great White Way Association of Iowa, to make a pitch for hosting the movement’s annual picnic, an event promised to bring throngs of visitors.

Having won their bid, they retraced their tracks in high spirits, parading and partying and inviting everyone they met to attend  the grand occasion on their Mississippi riverfront.

Muscatine Journal, April 24, 1914: “In fact nearly every culvert along the route is either concrete or currugated iron, both of these being manufactured in Muscatine.”

Journal, July 21: “Muscatine will be the scene of the greatest good roads celebration ever held in the state of Iowa when the Great White Way picnic is staged here from August 17th to 20th. Fifteen thousand visitors are expected to be attracted to Muscatine by the elaborate entertainment which is to be provided. Three thousand dollars is to be appropriated to meet the expenses of the event which will be of such magnitude as to attract tourists from the Mississippi to the Missouri rivers.”

Motor-boat racing. Aqua-plane racing. Hydro-plane flights. Venetian Night illuminated boat parade. Free vaudeville acts and more.

“The visitors will also be permitted to indulge in a Muscatine water melon orgy. Thousands of melons from the Muscatine Island, the richest melon producing area in the world, will be brought….”

The word went out. “5 p.m. Watermelon feed. Free watermelon to out of town visitors, who register at the headquarters.”

But the picnic got rained out. Presenters of activity and performers of entertainment slogged and soldiered on, but mud and muck prevailed. An effusive letter of thanks signed by officers of the association put on a brave face in praise of “arrangements for holding the greatest event of the kind ever planned.”

“However valuable this deluge, the thousands who were thereby prevented from motoring to the picnic more than share your regret…. Muscatine and the hospitality of its people have become better known to hundreds of thousands of people through the middle west.”

Association secretary Don McClure left for Oskaloosa “in his big touring car.”

“‘I will tell every one who intends to take an auto trip in Iowa to be sure to stop at Muscatine and get a melon’ said McClure. He took with him two of the biggest melons in the city.”

*****

So, listen up, you RAGBRAI riders. That historic route is how you will enter our town. After you cross under U.S. Highway 61, you will be on Hershey Avenue, admiring our soccer fields to your right. Soon you will approach our riverfront and at least one slice of fresh, juicy melon some volunteer will offer you.

You won’t believe your eyes when the 40-foot Largest Watermelon Slice on Planet Earth appears in view! Our mayor has promised to erect it for your passing pleasure and then grow it into a permanent icon.

He’s our Chamber of Commerce CEO, too: Booster-in-Chief Brad Bark.

But wait! Just a brief moment earlier you will be gliding by Carver Corner, and there you might give a special, grateful salute to those old-time good-roads boosters.

Glance left at that red brick, three-story, Civil War-era building. It’s vacant. Some call it an eyesore, but still it stands defiantly—like it belongs there. After decades as grocery, saloon, restaurant, and dance hall, a new owner refurbished it for the comfort of 20th-century motorists and reopened in 1919 as the White Way Hotel.

*****

Muscatine Journal, September 29, 1914, quoting the Iowa Highway Commission magazine: “She had five blocks of her main street bejewelled with myriads of electric lights. White Way banners and streamers were countless. Store fronts were orgies of bunting and banners. Muscatine water melons straight from Muscatine Island were there, enough to feed the armies of the allies and Germans combined…. But the rains descended and the floods came and soaked all eastern Iowa. Instead of picnickers, Muscatine for two days had only messages from White Way automobilists tied up, scores of miles away.”

The guns of August 1914. Germany rolled over Belgium, and the Great War was on.

Early in 2022 I set out to relate pieces of our shared story framed as local Black History. This is Column 60.

Next time: A “colored” businessman on the Great White Way

State Auditor Rob Sand speaks at a public town hall in Onawa (Monona County) on May 22, 2023. Photo provided by State Auditor’s office.

Rob Sand is Iowa’s state auditor.

As Iowa’s taxpayer watchdog, I hear from Iowans just about every day with concerns about state and local government. Oftentimes, there are steps my office can take to address those concerns; other times, the next step is as simple as directing folks to the best channel in state government to address their question. Sometimes, it’s easy to also confuse misplaced priorities for misspent money—one requires a change in leadership, and the other requires an audit investigation.

Randy Evans, the executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, recently raised questions about the state auditor’s responsibility to investigate secret government settlements. Evans wrote in his column that the situation “should have State Auditor Rob Sand knocking on the doors at City Hall” and “asking questions on behalf of the tax-paying people of Davenport.”

What many people don’t know, however, is that the state auditor needs some kind of request to conduct a review at the local level.

Carl Olsen is the founder of Iowans for Medical Marijuana.

The Iowa Department of Corrections filed two study bills this week, asking Iowa legislators to make an exception to the state’s medical cannabis program, Iowa Code Chapter 124E.

Senate Study Bill 3020 and companion House Study Bill 524 call for amending the statute so the state can

Revoke a medical cannabidiol registration card issued to a person who becomes committed to the custody of the director of the Iowa department of corrections or placed under the supervision of the Iowa department of corrections.

Photo provided by the author, showing maternal health advocates advocating for licensure of certified professional midwives during an Iowa House Ways and Means subcommittee meeting in February 2023.

Rachel Bruns is a volunteer advocate for quality maternal health care in Iowa.

This time last year I wrote about five policies that would improve maternal health in Iowa. I’m updating the piece for the 2024 legislative session with a focus on three core priorities. 

Although access to abortion care and contraceptives are critical to maternal and infant health, I do not discuss those topics here. I want to highlight lesser-known aspects of maternal health specific to prenatal, birth, and postpartum care, which receive much less media coverage.

For the 2024 legislative session, I am focusing on three issues I raised last year, which have a strong chance to be enacted. These policies would improve maternal health in Iowa by expanding access to midwives and expanding prenatal care options. I wrote at length in 2021 about how midwives save lives, and it seems like every week a different study or article underscores how the midwifery model of care leads to better outcomes. If you’re interested in diving deeper, one of my favorite resources released in 2023 is this Issue Brief on Maternity Medicaid Strategies from the Maternal Health Hub.

Summit Carbon Solutions proposed CO2 pipeline route in Iowa, from the company’s website

Bonnie Ewoldt is a Milford resident and Crawford County landowner.

As 2023 ended, CO2 pipelines were among the most newsworthy developments in Iowa. Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline would cross more than 30 of Iowa’s 99 counties.

Heading into 2024, county boards of supervisors bear a heavy responsibility as they deal with ordinances while the state awaits the Iowa Utilities Board’s decision on Summit’s permit application. 

Mike Jones is the mayor of Windsor Heights.

If you’ve been overseas, you have to love the buses and trains. It’s effortless to get around in Paris, Berlin, Munich or London. They have vast transportation networks that can cheaply and quickly transport you miles in only a few short minutes. With a few exceptions, such networks don’t exist in U.S. cities.

Ford’s assembly line method of mass production finally made the automobile affordable for the everyman. After World War II, cheap mortgages, the construction of the Interstate Highway System, and veterans receiving benefits from the G.I. Bill gave birth to the sprawling suburbs that we see today. The convenience and the independence granted by the automobile became part of our culture and for better or worse, shapes how we fund infrastructure and public services in our country.

Unfortunately, the automobile revolution has also resulted in the minimizing and under-funding of mass transit.

Photo of Perry High School is by Richc80, available via Wikimedia Commons

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

Like many Iowans, my thoughts have been rather chaotic since the horrible news from Perry High School last week.

The events were so sad and senseless. A 17-year-old student was dead, having shot himself. An 11-year-old sixth-grader, known for his big smile and cheerful outlook, was dead from three gunshot wounds. Seven other students and school employees, including the high school principal, were wounded by the teenager.

Americans are numb to the number and frequency of school shootings and other mass killings. Our leaders appear to be paralyzed. Yes, they express their sadness and concern, but thoughts and prayers are not enough.

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

Nikki Haley needed an entire day to admit, rather furtively, that slavery was a possible cause of the Civil War. Donald Trump thinks that the bloody struggle from 1861-65 (which Trump, in a rare burst of accuracy, described as “very rough time”) happened because Abraham Lincoln was born too soon to read the “Art of the Deal.” Had the Great Emancipator been so fortunate, Trump said in Newton on January 6, “you probably wouldn’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was.”

Iowans whose knowledge of the Civil War goes slightly beyond Ken Burns’ PBS series three decades ago are shaking their heads in wonderment at such ignorance. But history is as much a vantage point than an absolute certainty. I learned that lesson in September, 1963, and the first days of classes in my junior year at Lincoln High School in the Nebraska capitol city.

Republican lawmakers may take additional steps to remove “sexually explicit material” from schools, Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley indicated on January 8. Speaking to fellow legislators, Grassley also blamed schools for politicizing what he called “a simple solution to protect Iowa’s students from inappropriate material.”

Grassley was the only House or Senate leader to address the school book bans in opening remarks on the first day of the legislature’s 2024 session. His comments came ten days after a federal court blocked the state of Iowa from enforcing a ban on library books and classroom materials that describe or depict sex acts.

Statue on Muscatine’s Mississippi riverfront erected in 1926 by the all-white Improved Order of Red Men.

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on June 7, 2023, under the headline “Alexander Clark does RAGBRAI?”

What would Alexander Clark say about Muscatine gearing up for another horde of RAGBRAI visitors in their sweat-drenched thousands?

A stretch of the imagination to wonder such a thing? It’s what I do while researching 19th century newspapers for dots connecting local Black history to—everything.

Clark was more than Equal Rights Champion. He did much to make his hometown better. Movers and shakers patronized his Hair Dressing Saloon, so he knew what was happening. He enjoyed travel, and his marketing sense and public demeanor took him places, especially in later years.

Photo of Magic 8 ball is by ChristianHeldt, available via Wikimedia Commons

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com  

When my kids were younger, we had a Magic 8 Ball. If you asked a Yes or No question and shook it, up popped an answer like, “Without a doubt,” “Outlook not so good,” or “Concentrate and ask again.” 

The Iowa legislature’s 2024 session began on January 8. Like last year, public education may well be on top of the agenda. With that in mind. I thought I’d introduce the Bruce Lear Magic 8 Ball. My version is next generation, so there’s an explanation with each answer. 

Like all predictions, they may be flat wrong, and they sure aren’t inevitable, especially if the education community unites and acts.

Iowa Senate chamber, as photographed by Nagel Photography, available via Shutterstock

The Iowa Senate convened in Des Moines on January 8 for the first day of the 2024 legislative session. Although the balance of power remains the same (34 Republicans, sixteen Democrats), I’m publishing a new version of this post to note changes in leadership or among the chairs, vice chairs, and members of standing Senate committees.

Fourteen senators (nine Republicans, five Democrats) were elected to the chamber for the first time in 2022. Seven of them (four Republicans and three Democrats) previously served in the Iowa House.

Fifteen senators are women (eight Democrats and seven Republicans), up from twelve women in the chamber prior to the 2022 election and more than double the six women senators who served prior to the 2018 election.

Democrat Izaah Knox is the second Black state senator in Iowa history. The first was Tom Mann, a Democrat elected to two terms during the 1980s. The other 49 senators are white. No Latino has ever served in the chamber, and Iowa’s only Asian-American senator was Swati Dandekar, who resigned in 2011.

Democrat Janice Weiner became the first Jewish person to serve in the Iowa Senate since Ralph Rosenberg left the legislature after 1994. Democrat Liz Bennett became the first out LGBTQ state senator since Matt McCoy retired in 2018.

Photo by Carl Olsen of the Iowa House chamber in 2020

Iowa House members return to Des Moines on January 8 for the opening day of the 2024 legislative session. Although the balance of power remains the same (64 Republicans, 36 Democrats), I’m publishing a new version of this post to note small changes in leadership or among the chairs, vice chairs, and members of standing House committees. Where relevant, I’ve noted changes since last year’s session.

Thirty-eight House members (24 Republicans and fourteen Democrats) are serving their first term in the legislature. Two Republicans previously held other legislative offices: Craig Johnson served one and a half terms in the Iowa Senate, and David Young served two terms in Congress.

The House members include 71 men and 29 women (sixteen Democrats and thirteen Republicans), down from 31 women who served in 2021 and 2022. The record for women’s representation in the Iowa House was 34 female lawmakers in 2019.

Before Iowa politics kicks into high gear with a new legislative session and the caucuses, I want to highlight the investigative reporting, in-depth analysis, and accountability journalism published first or exclusively on this site last year.

Some newspapers, websites, and newsletters put their best original work behind a paywall for subscribers, or limit access to a set number of free articles a month. I’m committed to keeping all Bleeding Heartland content available to everyone, regardless of ability to pay. That includes nearly 500 articles and commentaries from 2023 alone, and thousands more posts in archives going back to 2007.

To receive links to everything recently published here via email, subscribe to the free Evening Heartland newsletter. I also have a free Substack, which is part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Subscribers receive occasional cross-posts from Bleeding Heartland, as well as audio files and recaps for every episode of KHOI Radio’s “Capitol Week,” a 30-minute show about Iowa politics co-hosted by Dennis Hart and me.

I’m grateful to all readers, but especially to tipsters. Please reach out with story ideas that may be worth pursuing in 2024.

Gun violence doesn’t originate at the schoolhouse door, and it won’t be solved there. Our policy making and political rhetoric urgently need to reflect this reality.

Nick Covington is an Iowa parent who taught high school social studies for ten years. He is also the co-founder of the Human Restoration Project, an Iowa educational non-profit promoting systems-based thinking and grassroots organizing in education.

Around 7:45 on the morning of January 4, I was headed home after dropping my daughter off at her elementary school when I thought nothing of pulling over for an Iowa Highway Patrol car, lights and sirens blaring, headed west. Hours later, as reports came in, I saw state troopers were among the first on the scene at Perry High School, at the edge of a small Iowa town about 30 minutes due west of my own. A 17-year old student had inaugurated another year of gun violence in American schools, killing a 6th grader and injuring five other students and two staff before taking his own life.

Those dopplered sirens were an unsettling connection between my ordinary morning drop-off routine and the nightmare that had visited families of a nearby community; another sign of the persistent and unique exposure to gun violence that only the United States allows. 

Photo of Allen Bonini at Lincoln’s Tomb in Oak Ridge National Cemetery (Springfield, Illinois) provided by the author and published with permission.

Allen Bonini retired in January 2021 after nearly 45 years as an environmental professional, serving in various technical, managerial and leadership positions in water quality, recycling and solid waste across the states of Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. Most recently, he served fifteen and a half years as the supervisor of the Watershed Improvement Section at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. In retirement he continues to advocate for responsible public policy and actions to improve and protect water quality in Iowa.

I devoted my entire 44 year professional career trying to protect and improve our environment across three Midwestern states. I tried to do that through the policies, programs and advocacy I’ve been involved with and/or led. Some who know me personally know I rarely back down from a fight or am afraid to call out injustices or wrong-headed decisions by organizational leadership—whether in state, regional or local governments or in corporate America (all of which I’ve served in one or more capacities throughout my career).

A select few of you know I believe “sometimes you have to play hardball.” That sums up my view of where we need to go in terms of the efforts to clean up our water and other natural resources here in Iowa. 

My fellow environmental colleagues, it’s time to recognize you don’t win an alley fight by bringing an olive branch, and you don’t take a knife to a gun fight.