U.S. Department of State photo of NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on July 12, 2018, via Wikimedia Commons

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Two events within a few months of each other 75 years ago forever altered the political and military landscape of the world. Their combined effects play an an important role in today’s diplomatic chess game.

On April 4, 1949, twelve Western nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, DC to create the Organization by that name, abbreviated to NATO. The signatories were the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland.

Over the next 75 years NATO’s membership expanded eastward through Europe to include today’s 32 nations, with Sweden’s signature affixed earlier this month.

Jess Piper speaks at a Progress Iowa event at the Tom and Ruth Harkin Center in Des Moines on March 22 (photo by Laura Belin)

Jess Piper is the Executive DIrector of Blue Missouri. She is a former high school teacher and former nominee for Missouri’s House district 1. She lives on a small farm in northwest Missouri with her family and is the author of The View from Rural Missouri newsletter, where this essay first appeared.

Uncontested races are undemocratic. They are also immoral. If we say we stand with all communities, we have to prove it by showing up on every ballot.

I live in Missouri. I understand supermajorities and the consolidation of power under a supermajority, but I also understand how we get ourselves out of this mess. It isn’t the conventional wisdom of flipping a couple of seats. It’s running everywhere no matter the fact that most of these uncontested seats won’t flip in one cycle.

I hate the phrase “the long game,” but this is literally the long game. It takes time and patience and money and fortitude. It also takes candidates with grit. If anyone has grit, it’s a Missouri Democrat—especially a rural Missouri Democrat. 

I should know. I ran in 2022.

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. 

Clowns to the left of me

Jokers to the right

Here I am

Stuck in the middle with you.

These are lyrics from the song “Stuck in the Middle With You,” co-written by Garry Rafferty and Joe Eagan and performed by their band in 1972. The 43 percent of voters who now identify as politically independent, according to Gallup, might agree that the lyrics “stuck in the middle” speak to them and our 2024 presidential election.

On March 12, Joe Biden and Donald Trump locked up their respective political party nomination, starting a 244-day campaign to November 5.

Research reveals the vast majority of registered Democrats are committed to vote for Biden despite his octogenarian age (though former Special Counsel Robert Hur told the president during one interview, “You appear to have a photographic understanding and recall”).

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

No problem is so big that we can’t run from it—or at least avoid thinking about it. That’s human nature.

There are many concerns that should command our attention but do not. Too often we hope or assume a serious problem will go away or will spare us.

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, too many of us discount whatever the scientists tell us—as if the anonymous pundit on social media knows more than the people who have devoted their lives to studying a particular problem.

But there is something else I have come to realize, unfortunately. Government leaders in Iowa have shown little interest in understanding “the Big C”—the widespread presence of cancer in Iowa. 

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

For all the national and global perspectives in the book, BARONS —subtitled “Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry”— has an “Iowa air.” That tag is not about the odors from farm factories. Nor is it a cheap shot at Jeff and Deb Hansen, who have owned Iowa Select Farms for about 30 years and sell 5 million hogs a year. They are dubbed “The Hog Barons”—one set of the seven barons the book title comprises. 

The “Iowa air” referred to is the persona of the author, Austin Frerick, 32, a seventh-generation Iowan, graduate of Grinnell and now a Thurman Arnold Fellow at Yale University. In the Arnold Project, faculty, students, and scholars collaborate on research dealing with competition policy and antitrust enforcement.

In BARONS, Frerick (like many Bleeding Heartland contributors) worries about what happened to the Iowa he knew as a paper boy delivering the Cedar Rapids Gazette or helping out at his mother’s bakery shop.

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    

There’s a beloved children’s book titled, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Alexander wakes up with gum in his hair, and it gets worse from there. 

After Governor Kim Reynolds’ Condition of the State speech on January 9, Area Education Agencies woke up with gum in their hair and it became a “Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year.”

UPDATE: The Iowa Senate approved the final House version of this bill on March 26, and the governor signed House file 2612 the following day. Original post follows.

Iowa House leaders attempted to wrap up work last week on the thorniest issue of the 2024 session: overhauling the Area Education Agencies (AEAs) to comply with Governor Kim Reynolds’ demand for “transformational change.” Less than three hours after a 49-page amendment appeared on the legislature’s website on March 21, the majority party cut off debate and approved a new version of House File 2612 by 51 votes to 43.

State Representative Skyler Wheeler hailed many provisions of the revised AEA bill as “wins” for House Republicans during the floor debate. House Speaker Pat Grassley likewise celebrated “big wins in this legislation” in the March 22 edition of his email newsletter.

Nine Republicans—Eddie Andrews, Mark Cisneros, Zach Dieken, Martin Graber, Tom Jeneary, Brian Lohse, Gary Mohr, Ray Sorensen, and Charley Thomson—didn’t buy into the official narrative and voted with Democrats against the bill.

I doubt any of them will regret that choice. If House File 2612 becomes law, it could irreparably harm the AEAs’ ability to provide a full range of services to children, families, educators, and schools.

Former State Senator Joe Bolkcom served on the Senate Ways and Means Committee for 24 years, including ten years as chair.

For the past eight years, Iowa taxpayers have been victims of a political scheme to collect our hard-earned taxes for services we never received.

Instead of investing our money in priorities to make Iowans stronger and more prosperous, Governor Kim Reynolds and our Republican-controlled legislature have hoarded our tax dollars into a colossal $5.5 billion surplus to redistribute to their favorite fat cat donors and special interest pals.

In a normal, functioning democracy, citizens expect their taxes will be spent to make their lives better. In Iowa, that should include adequately funding our local public schools; more inspectors to make sure our nursing homes are safe for seniors; better maintained state parks; more mental health, alcohol and drug treatment in all 99 counties; affordable colleges and universities; safer roads and prisons; improved maternal health; and serious efforts to clean up our polluted lakes and rivers.

Donald Trump speaks at an Ohio rally on March 16. Screenshot from C-SPAN video

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register and the Substack newsletter Showing Up, where this essay first appeared. He serves as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

“Words matter.” It’s a simple message, one I’ve cited before, short enough to be printed on a lapel button. I know this, thinking back a dozen years, to when I worked for the National Council of Churches (NCC), a national Christian organization. There were indeed buttons circulating around NCC offices with these two words on display. 

The “words matter” message was in support of more inclusive, less male dominant language… in church documents, in congregations, in outreach conversations, and most certainly, in our thinking. Memories of this button surfaced after reading reports and seeing video clips of the former president speaking at an Ohio rally prior to that state’s primary. One word he used that day was “bloodbath” (the New York Times spells it as two words). It’s an unusually powerful term—like massacre, genocide, holocaust—meaning usage requires considerable care and caution.

David Tilly is a former deputy director of the Iowa Department of Education. He emailed this message to all 150 Iowa legislators on March 20. His previous messages to lawmakers about proposed changes to Area Education Agencies are available here, here, and here.

Open letter to Iowa Legislators:

I am David Tilly. I was Deputy Director at the Iowa Department of Education between 2012 and 2020. I oversaw the Division of PK-12, which encompasses special education responsibility and oversight in Iowa. I am writing today to address a rumor that appears to be circulating about the AEA bills. Specifically that the Iowa Department of Education must be given both more authority and more compliance resources over special education or the “feds” might come in and “take us over.” This statement is patently false. That is not how Federal Special Education Monitoring of states works. The Iowa Department of Education currently has all of the monetary resources and authority necessary to effectively monitor special education in Iowa.

Please excuse the long-detailed email, but it’s important to set the record straight.

State Senator Dan Dawson presents Senate File 2349, regarding defense subpoenas, during floor debate on February 27. Screenshot from official video.

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

What were they thinking? That is a question I ask myself a lot lately.

Those were the first words out of my mouth when the Manhattan district attorney had to postpone Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial on the alleged hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels — the delay necessitated because government lawyers had dropped the ball.

I muttered those words during several days of court hearings in Georgia into Atlanta prosecutor Fani Willis’ affair with a subordinate prosecutor — the one she chose to lead the criminal case against Trump and a dozen other defendants for trying to undo that state’s 2020 presidential election results.

And those words come to mind about bills the Iowa legislature is considering that would affect criminal cases like those brought against state university athletes for their online wagers on sporting events.

Images of Thomas Paine, Juvenal, and Trofim Lysenko all taken from Wikimedia Commons.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

This Bleeding Heartland post offers four perspectives on the dreadful Iowa legislature and on fears of the outcome of the November general elections. Three small doses come from Thomas Paine, known as the poet or penman of the American Revolution; Juvenal, a poet in First Century Rome; and Trofim Lysenko, a Soviet agronomist, who was not much of a poet and even less of a scientist.

The larger fourth dose is the draft of A Social Statement on Civic Life and Faith. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is considering this draft for September adoption by the Task Force for Studies on Civic Life and Faith. The text is relevant to laws approved by Iowa lawmakers or pending in the state legislature, and to political campaigns now under way across the country.

Supporters of the Work Without Worry bill lobby at the state capitol on March 12. From left: Derek Fike, State Representative Josh Turek, Jordan True, Julie Russell-Steuart, and Jen Sinkler.

Jordan True chairs the Iowa Democratic Party’s Disability Caucus. He emailed the message enclosed below to Republican members of the Iowa House Appropriations Committee on March 13.

Honorable Representatives of the House Appropriations Committee,

Please support appropriations for HF 2589 Work Without Worry by asking Chair Gary Mohr to assign to a subcommittee and schedule a vote as soon as possible in the Appropriations Committee. Although this bill has survived the funnel, please help employed people with disabilities get this through appropriations, through the House, and onto the Senate by the end of March. 

Sample ballot used in Maine (which has a ranked choice voting system) in 2018

Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers.

Ranked choice voting should be the bare minimum for a society interested in the most representative and responsive government. It is extremely frustrating to see Iowa Republican legislative leaders work against a more balanced and representative approach to democracy by banning ranked choice voting as part of the election bill numbered House File 2610 and Senate File 2380.

Opponents of ranked choice voting never give any reason or provide any citation supporting their position. It simply reflects a commitment to “the way its always been done,” along with fear mongering about some amorphous specter of fraud—even though the method of counting votes has nothing to do with fraud or misrepresentation. 

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

Well, well. The 2024 State of the Union is behind us. As I expected, President Joe Biden was ready and roaring to enter the fray. He tackled his opponent in the proverbial end zone and brushed aside MAGA supporters as if they were linebackers on a junior high school squad. As expected, the southern border was center stage, amidst a gazillion other gigantic topics.

Given that most Americans thought Biden would slump into a stupor while standing behind the podium, they must have been astounded that exactly the opposite happened. Vice President Kamala Harris seemed thrilled, smiling and clapping like a cheerleader at a National Championship Game. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson looked puzzled and confused, turning from glum to dispirited to angry with each tick of the clock.

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

Like many people who call this state home, I have long taken an interest in the careers and achievements of people who got their start in Iowa. 

As a kid, I was fascinated to walk through that two-room cottage in West Branch, knowing a president of the United States, Herbert Hoover, was born there.

As the Iowa Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments on the near-total abortion ban Republicans enacted last year, state House and Senate Republicans are advancing several bills to further their anti-abortion agenda. The latest example is House File 2575, which rewrites the criminal statute on causing a non-consensual pregnancy loss. House members approved the bill on March 7, voting mostly along party lines.

Republican State Representative Skyler Wheeler denied during Iowa House debate that what he called a “fetal homicide” bill could jeopardize the legality of in vitro fertilization (IVF). He either doesn’t understand the plain meaning of the legislation he floor managed, or was trying to mislead the public about its potential impact.

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    

Educators need a lot of things. They need adequate on time school funding, parental support, dedicated school boards, administrators who’ll back them, copy paper, supplies, adequate preparation time, professional pay, positive working conditions, technology, and a legislature who supports public schools and doesn’t interfere with real teaching and learning.

They don’t need guns.

Lanon Baccam is a combat veteran, former USDA official, and candidate for Iowa’s third Congressional district.

On this International Women’s Day I’m thinking about the nine incredible women in my life. My wife, three mothers-in-law, four sisters, and my mom—Bounmy Baccam—the bravest, most loving, and generous woman I know.

My family’s story traces back to Laos and is deeply impacted by the Vietnam War. A conflict so violent that to this day Laos maintains a notorious distinction of being the most bombed nation on earth. Two million tons of ordnance were dropped on Laos—the equivalent of an entire planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day, for 9 years on an area the size of Oregon.

Al Charlson is a North Central Iowa farm kid, lifelong Iowan, and retired bank trust officer. The Waverly Democrat previously published a version of this commentary on February 28.

Iowans get it. We understand that we have to pay for the public services needed to maintain the quality of life we want for ourselves and our neighbors. A fundamental responsibility of our elected leaders at all levels is to maintain a system of state and local taxes which will raise the funds needed and do so in a way that is fair.

As discussed in an earlier column, major changes now being considered in the Iowa legislature would fall short of raising the revenue needed. 

The nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency’s Analysis of Governor Kim Reynolds’ Budget Recommendations for Fiscal Year 2025 (which runs from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025) shows that if her plan were enacted, general fund spending would exceed tax revenue by $625 million. The governor intends to use surplus carryforward to pad the total available revenues to spend next year.

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

Mark your calendars for the State of the Union this Thursday, March 7. Get your TVs tuned up. Gather the kids. Sit back. See Marjorie Taylor Greene swallow her tongue. Watch Speaker Mike Johnson break his gavel. See Vice President Kamala Harris spank Jim Jordan’s Freedom Caucus. It’ll be wild.

President Joe Biden will say the state of the union is good. He’ll be right. In fact, on many fronts, the state of the union is great. The trouble is, too few voters believe that, and many are swayed by former President Donald Trump’s preposterous claims or the hypnotic trance he’s placed them in.

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this article first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com

Republicans in the Iowa legislature say they don’t want politics in your kid’s classroom. But that’s not true. They don’t mind politics in your kid’s classroom—as long as it’s their politics.

The proof was in full view on February 28 in the Iowa House.

Official White House photo

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.

Is Joe Biden too old to be seeking a second term as president of the United States? Well, he clearly thinks he is not. He recently stated that he is the most qualified person in the country to hold that office.

Biden had his annual physical a few days ago. His personal physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, concluded his six-page summary of the president’s health by saying, “President Biden is a healthy, active, robust 81-year old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those of the Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief.”

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley is well known for lamenting the lack of history on the History Channel. This week he has engaged in revisionist history about his role in spreading false allegations against President Joe Biden.

The senator spent months publicizing claims that the president and his son Hunter Biden took bribes from a Ukrainian businessman, even though FBI officials had warned Grassley and other Republican politicians the bribery had not been verified.

Now Grassley is trying to reshape the narrative, casting himself as the hero who helped expose the source of the false claims as a liar. He continues to push back against accusations that he has been a conduit for Russian disinformation.

Photograph of the painting The Sermon on the Mount by Carl Bloch, 1890

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Another nightmare of Iowa legislation is upon us in Senate File 2095 and House File 2454, companion bills lumped together as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (often known as RFRA). 

The legislation would be more appropriately labeled FACT, for Fearful, Arrogant, Callous Threats to Iowans’ civil rights. That’s because Senate File 2095 would turn upside down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that Congress approved and President Bill Clinton signed in 1993.

Quaker Oats plant in Cedar Rapids, photographed by David Harmantas (Shutterstock).

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

Attorneys for Canadian Pacific Kansas City submitted a 59-page filing to the U.S. Surface Transportation Board on February 26 regarding the proposed acquisition of Iowa Northern Railway by Canadian National.

The Canadian Pacific Kansas City filing highlights the proposed deal’s “national importance” and cites “competitive concerns of significant magnitude” in calling for the Surface Transportation Board to classify Canadian National’s takeover attempt of Iowa Northern as a “Significant” transaction rather than the “Minor” transaction status that Canadian National has sought.

The distinction matters because “Minor” transactions aren’t subject to the same regulatory requirements as “Significant” transactions—meaning the public would have less access to information and less time to review the deal.

Jack Posobiec speaks at the Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida on July 16, 2023. Photo by Gage Skidmore, available via Wikimedia Commons.

Jim Nelson is a retired Montana Supreme Court justice.

It has been said that: “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving the cross.”

Early signs are visible in the U.S. right now. For example, at the Conservative Political Action Convention’s recent annual meeting, right-wing conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec proclaimed during a panel discussion, “I just wanted to say, welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.”

Posobiec then held up a Christian cross on his necklace, adding, “That’s right, because all glory, all glory is not to government, all glory is to God.”

Photo of Donald Trump campaigning at West High in Sioux City is by Bernie Scolaro and published with permission.

Bernie Scolaro is a retired school counselor, a past president of the Sioux City Education Association, and former Sioux City school board member.

Former President Donald Trump has won all the GOP nominating contests so far. On March 5 (Super Tuesday), the MAGA base in fifteen states and American Samoa will vote for a shallow man who somehow fills an emptiness inside them. It’s a sort of “Fat Tuesday” for Trump zealots. 

What insatiable need is missing from the common, everyday person that so many want to re-elect a person like Trump? What void lets us elect someone regardless of his cruel bullying? 

Following two days of contentious debate in the Iowa Senate, the chamber’s calendar for Wednesday, February 21 appeared to be stacked with non-controversial bills.

Then State Senator Jeff Edler rose to offer Senate File 2369, an “act relating to autologous and directed blood donations.”

The blood donation bill may not be as impactful as other legislation Senate Republicans approved last week: proposals to undermine Iowa’s state auditor, reduce Medicaid eligibility for pregnant Iowans, make state funded crisis pregnancy centers less accountable, enable discrimination if grounded in religious beliefs, and repeal the gender balance requirement for state boards and commissions.

Yet Senate File 2369 is important—not only because of its potential impact on the blood supply, but for what it reveals about legislative culture in the eighth year of Iowa’s Republican trifecta.

Bonnie Ewoldt is a Milford resident and Crawford County landowner.

The Iowa House is considering a bill designed to combat “organized retail theft” of property from stores. Lawmakers supporting the measure said they wanted to deter looting, which has happened in some U.S. cities. Law enforcement has not always intervened. 

Iowans may naively think such lawlessness cannot happen here. But it could. 

Summit Carbon Solutions has been using strong-arm tactics to take farmland for a pressurized CO2 pipeline. Meanwhile, power players in the Iowa Senate, Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver and Senate Commerce Committee Chair Waylon Brown, block all attempts at legislative intervention. 

Connie Ryan is Executive Director of the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa and Action Fund. She first published a version of this essay in the Des Moines Register.

Religious freedom is one of our country’s most fundamental rights. Religious freedom is also already protected through the First Amendment to the U.S Constitution as well as Article I, Section 3 of our state’s constitution. The rule of law is also important.

Iowa Senate Republicans approved Senate File 2095, known as the religious exemptions law or “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” on February 20. But even some Republicans have major concerns with the legislation.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley has yet to comment publicly on a new document asserting that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter Biden.

The revelation came in a detention memo federal prosecutors filed on February 20, hoping to convince a court to keep former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov incarcerated pending trial. Smirnov was arrested last week and charged with lying to FBI agents about an alleged bribery scheme involving Hunter Biden and his father, when Joe Biden was vice president. The FBI memorialized those claims in an FD-1023 document, which Grassley released and hyped last year as evidence of Biden family corruption. Prosecutors now say Smirnov fabricated the allegations.

The detention memo details Smirnov’s “extensive and extremely recent” contacts with “officials affiliated with Russian intelligence,” and asserts he was planning to to meet with Russian operatives during an upcoming trip abroad. The defendant reported some of those contacts to his FBI handler before being arrested and divulged other relevant information in a custodial interview on February 14.

Grassley’s communications staff did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries this week about Smirnov’s reported contacts with Russian intelligence. The senator has regularly posted on social media as he tours northern Iowa, but has not acknowledged news related to the false bribery claims. His office has issued ten news releases about various other topics since February 20.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

House File 2544 survived last week’s funnel deadline in the Iowa legislature and is eligible for floor debate in the state House of Representatives. If I were a public school social studies teacher in Iowa and this bill were to become law, I would begin to wonder how I could continue to teach what I know about American history and government.

I am speaking out to educate our communities and give voice to thousands of families across the state who are begging our Iowa legislators to stop the Area Education Agency (AEA) education reform bill from being passed into law during the 2024 legislative session.

Having spent years building my professional experience in effective health care transformation, performance and process improvement in large systems, I know we are not doing this the right way. We are not taking time to perform a credible and thorough study to determine what reform is needed before enacting a bill. A change of this magnitude cannot be rushed, or it will inevitably fail. The risk is too high to gamble on our children’s well-being and their futures. 

Any harm to our children as a result of the decisions made this legislative session will never be forgiven, nor forgotten. Our integrated AEA system works and is a national treasure. Many states aspire to implement a system like we have, and my personal story demonstrates that our system works. 

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. 

Martin Niemöller (1892-1984), a German Lutheran pastor, composed a 1946 post-World War II confessional titled “First they came for the Socialists . . ..” The four-line composition explains, in straight-forward language, how the Nazis rose to power by methodically silencing German intellectuals and clergy.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum features the prose on one of its walls:

Wally Taylor is the Legal Chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter. He wrote this essay after attending the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ virtual public hearing about the new Chapter 65 regulations on February 19.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has been revising its regulations for animal feeding operations as dictated by Governor Kim Reynolds’ Executive Order 10, issued in early 2023.

Chapter 65 of the Iowa administrative code has long contained confusing and inadequate rules, which are open to manipulation by livestock producers and the DNR.

The DNR tried to revise the regulations recently to provide more protection for Iowa’s waters in areas of karst terrain. But the governor’s “Administrative Rules Coordinator” Nate Ristow blocked the proposed rule, because it would not reduce the “regulatory burden” on livestock producers.

Gerhild Krapf is a longtime resident of Iowa City. She worked as attorney for University hospitals and served in a variety of University of Iowa administrative positions for many years, prior to retiring early. She is now real estate broker of her firm, Homes & Hearth,LLC.

I write as the daughter of German immigrants who survived Nazi Germany and came to America in the early 1950s. My father was conscripted in Germany at age 17, and fought in the German army on the Russian front. At war’s end, he was illegally captured by the Soviets and transported to a Siberian prison camp, where he almost died.

After four years of forced labor, he was sent home to Germany, now weighing only 85 pounds and too weak to labor in coal mines, build bridges and roads, and so on. His return home was a miracle to his family, who believed he was dead.

Alexandra Dermody is a Davenport-based Gen Z community advocate, nonprofit director, and small business owner.

The experience of transgender Americans is fraught with difficulty, particularly for trans women of color, who are disproportionately targeted for violence and prejudice. Startling data from the Trans Murder Monitoring project exposes a disturbingly high number of murders of transgender individuals worldwide, with a notable portion occurring in the United States.

This violence is not haphazard but rather a direct result of pervasive discrimination present in all aspects of society—from employment opportunities to inadequate health care access. These are not isolated occurrences, but rather symptomatic of a larger societal issue that systematically deprives transgender individuals of their basic rights and humanity.

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   

America thrives on competition. We love it when victory hangs in the balance. Super Bowl Sunday is almost a national holiday that we celebrate with parties and betting. Court TV is a guilty pleasure for millions. Local, statewide, and national elections earn attention. Whatever the result, we want the competition to be fair.

Senate File 2374, which the Iowa Senate Workforce Committee approved along party lines last week, would cripple public sector unions while once again attacking public schools.

The Iowa Board of Medicine has unanimously approved a new version of administrative rules related to a near-total abortion ban Republicans hope to enforce in the future.

The law, known as House File 732, is currently enjoined under a Polk County District Court order, which the state has appealed. If the Iowa Supreme Court eventually allows the ban to go into effect, the administrative rules would provide some guidance to physicians on how to approach the law’s (mostly unworkable) exceptions.

The revisions approved during a February 15 teleconference meeting address some objections physicians raised when the board discussed the rules in November and January. However, they do not change the reality that the rules don’t match how doctors normally interact with patients seeking to terminate a pregnancy.