Al Charlson is a North Central Iowa farm kid, lifelong Iowan, and retired bank trust officer. This column was first published in the Waverly Newspapers.

We recently received the 2025-26 real estate tax statement for our farmland in my “home county.” The 11 percent increase must have felt like a punch to a lot of our neighbors back home at this time of corn and soybean prices below the cost of production. It hits particularly hard for younger farmers struggling to provide for their families, make farm payments, and maintain their machinery.

As a note to my non-farm friends and neighbors, the assessment of Iowa farmland for real estate taxes is entirely different than it is for our homes. Home assessments are based on recent sale prices of comparable homes. Since 1977 Iowa farmland has been assessed based on soil productivity (estimated value of crops produced minus production costs).

That makes a big difference. Based on the Bremer County Assessor’s valuation, our Waverly home is worth about 1.4 times the estimated fair market value of our “home county” farmland. The non-city portion of 2025-26 taxes on our Waverly home are about 4.4 times the taxes on our farmland. In my opinion this accommodation for agriculture, the base of Iowa’s economy, is reasonable and justified.

Chuck Isenhart is an investigative reporter, photographer and recovering Iowa state legislator offering research, analysis, education and public affairs advocacy at his Substack newsletter Iowa Public Policy Geek, where this essay first appeared.

In 2014, Raki Giannakouros and Blue Sky Solar put six solar panels on the roof of my house. I have not paid for an electron since. The installation has paid for itself multiple times. Even with Alliant Energy’s recent 19 percent daily “customer charge” increase, my monthly bill is still less than a Thomas Jefferson.

When natural gas prices doubled for everybody in the months after the Texas freeze, I was able to use an electric space heater on many winter nights to avoid the worst of the gas price surge. All made possible by a net-metering policy in Iowa that allows me to generate power the utility can sell to others in the summer (avoiding costs for the utility) that I can reclaim in the winter (when electricity demand is down).

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.

After reading a CNN article about how State Auditor Rob Sand is “leading with faith” as a strategy in his campaign for governor, I am dismayed.

He is wrong, and I think his rhetoric puts the future of our state and the Democratic Party in jeopardy. I like Rob, and I think he would be a better governor than any Republican, but using faith in this way is a dead end for him and the party. He may pick up voters and may even win with this approach in 2026. But it’s not a sustainable long-term strategy, in light of our increasingly secular populace, with older voters having the strongest religious affinity.

Dave Leshtz is the editor of The Prairie Progressive.

“Satanism is as American as apple pie.”

           –Bill Douglas, author of The People are Kind: A Religious History of Iowa

It was hot as hell on Sunday, September 14, in Toledo, Iowa—the scene of a public reading of John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

For the second time, members of the Satanic Temple of Iowa gathered to honor the epic poem they consider the foundational text of what history calls The Enlightenment. My car’s thermometer reached 93 degrees as I parked in front of the Tama County courthouse. Undeterred by the heat, eight Temple members were dressed in their traditional Satanic black finery as they read Milton’s blank verse masterpiece beneath a black pop-up tent.

When I attended the Temple’s first public reading last summer, members were still smarting from the Iowa Department of Administrative Services’ abrupt cancellation of their planned event at the state capitol. Agency director Adam Steen had yanked its approval, forcing the group to look for another government location.

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.

More than 90 years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered a warning that appears prescient in light of today’s woes. Consider these 53 words from FDR’s inaugural address on March 4, 1933:

(T)he only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”

Roosevelt’s reference to “dark hours of our national life” calls to mind other rhetoric and survival in dark hours. The reference hints at the lack of frankness and needed vigor in our nation today. And the reference does far more than merely hint about the fear than Trump strikes in the hearts of so many — from the struggling non-profit organizations trying to aid the vulnerable and needy to the well-off members of Congress, apparently confident in their unending terms in office.

A poll in the field this week previews attack lines Republicans may use next year against State Auditor Rob Sand, the likely Democratic nominee for governor.

Some Iowans have received this survey over the phone, and others over text. The questions enclosed below are taken verbatim from a respondent’s screenshots. A different respondent who took the poll by phone confirmed the question wording.

A quick reminder: although you may feel angry when you hear biased or misleading claims about Democratic candidates, it’s better not to hang up or click away. Take screenshots or detailed notes, or record the phone call, and share the questionnaire with me. (I won’t publish your name.)

Diane Porter of Fairfield first published this post on My Gaia, an email newsletter “about getting to know nature” and “giving her a helping hand in our own backyards.” Diane also maintains the Birdwatching Dot Com website and bird blog.

On September 9 I watched a Ruby-throated Hummingbird visit the purple blossoms of Rough Blazing Star (Liatris aspera). For a couple of seconds she hovers at bill’s length from the flowers, then moves slightly up or around the stalk. I couldn’t see her tongue, but I knew she was using it to slurp out the nectar.

Most adult males had already migrated out of Iowa by that time. Females and the young of the year linger a while longer. They zip around seeking flower sugar, which they will put away in the form of hummingbird fat. They must store calories to power their long migratory flight south, right across the Gulf of Mexico and on into Central America.

Adam Zabner represents Iowa House district 90, covering part of Iowa City.

In April 2024, Bleeding Heartland published an op-ed I wrote detailing my fight with Governor Kim Reynolds’ administration to secure voting rights for Iowans on Medicaid. The fight centered around a federal law, the National Voter Registration Act, which requires states to offer voter registration to people registering for public assistance programs.

As I wrote, at the time, “Iowa’s Medicaid application form is 27 pages long. Many other states include a voter registration form in the packet. In Iowa, at the bottom of page 16, the packet contains one sentence and a link to the voter registration form. The link is printed out. An Iowan would have to type the 46-character link into their browser and access a printer to print it out. This is unlikely to register voters and states with similar policies have been found to be out of compliance with the NVRA.” The result was that far fewer people were registering to vote through Medicaid applications in Iowa, compared to almost any other state.

Edward Kelly, Jr. is a former Pentecostal Fundamentalist minister. He lives in Bellevue, Nebraska and works as a case manager at Heartland Family Service.

Imagine this scenario: Stephan had made the appointment with her primary care doctor as a last resort. She had recently developed a habit of delaying seeing a doctor until the symptoms became overwhelming, and the symptoms now were unbearable, so she called. But she knew they would say the same thing. “Stephan, we still do not have a legal change of name. We have you as Stephen.” They just would not recognize her gender nor her name.

It was one big hassle. And when they came out and called her to go in, it was always the same: “Stephen.” She would walk up, and they would announce to the doctor, “Stephen is here.”

The Republican supermajority in the Iowa Senate is no more. Catelin Drey became the seventeenth Democrat in the 50-member chamber on September 15.

About half of her Democratic colleagues came to watch Drey take the oath of office, including State Senator Mike Zimmer, who flipped another Republican-held district in January.

Alongside her husband and daughter, Catelin Drey repeats the oath after Iowa Supreme Court Justice Matthew McDermott (photo courtesy of Iowa Senate Democrats)

Kira Barker is a Democratic organizer in Polk County. She posted this reflection on Facebook on September 12, two days after Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

It was my first year clerking in the Iowa House (January 2023). I was so naive, I remember working on those House races in Ankeny, thinking if we flipped those seats, we would be able to stop private school vouchers. LOL. I had no idea what the legislature was really like or what I was getting into.

During clerk orientation, staff told us we’d have several weeks to settle in before any bills would be up for a vote. In the second week the Iowa Rs passed the voucher bill. I described it as Dems getting our teeth kicked in; after enough kicks your gums get callused. The team in charge really knew how to set the tone.

Throughout the session there are “Day on the Hill” events where organizations bring members to the capitol to meet legislators, lobby, and set up tables in the first-floor rotunda to highlight priorities. This particular day was “Second Amendment Day on the Hill.”

If you didn’t know, guns are allowed in the capitol. I didn’t know that at the time. I learned it that day.

John and Terri own The Hale Group, an Ankeny-based advocacy firm focused on older Iowans. John had a 25-year career with the Social Security Administration, working in Iowa field offices, the Kansas City regional office, and its Baltimore headquarters. terriandjohnhale@gmail.com

No tax on Social Security benefits!

President Donald Trump has said it. U.S. Representative Zach Nunn has said it.

The problem is: It’s just not true.

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 

Schools are in full swing. Classes are packed with students, but some are missing a full-time teacher. 

If there’s a vacancy in most professions, another colleague takes up the slack. But teaching is unique. It’s impossible to make an unfilled teaching vacancy invisible since there are always 25 or 30 student witnesses.

As school begins in Iowa, the exact number of unfilled teaching vacancies is hard to determine. The Iowa Department of Education won’t release official numbers until late this year. So, is the teacher shortage a real problem, or nothing to worry about?

Catherine Ross is a pseudonym for one of the authors of this post. Bleeding Heartland is keeping the authors’ names confidential, as well as the location in Iowa where these detentions occurred.

June 16, 2025 began like any other morning for two hardworking men in an Iowa community. As dawn broke, the first—a restaurant employee driving to work—was boxed in by two unmarked cars. Masked figures jumped out, ordered him from his vehicle, and whisked him away.

Three friends, trailing behind, watched in horror, as it appeared their fellow worker was being kidnapped. One friend ran to move the abandoned car off the street, unaware that other masked men lurked nearby. He, too, was seized and driven away. Only two witnesses in the second car remained to tell the tale.

Friends and families did not learn these men’s whereabouts for thirteen hours, when their names were found on ICE’s (Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the US Homeland Security) detainee roster at Polk County Jail—a facility paid by ICE for housing ICE detainees. After 48 hours there, they were transferred to Pine Prairie Correctional Facility in rural Louisiana for four more days.

“You understand what too many of our fellow Americans have forgotten: that democracy is not on automatic pilot,” U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen told hundreds of Democrats in Des Moines on September 13. “Its survival, its very survival, depends on us.”

In his keynote address at the Polk County Democrats’ annual Steak Fry fundraiser, the senior senator from Maryland repeatedly urged Democrats to fight back against President Donald Trump’s lawless regime. He also faulted members of his own party, who don’t always stand up for core principles.

Rose Mary Pratt is a native of Des Moines and has been involved in Polk County and Iowa Democratic Party politics for fifty plus years. She is a former secondary education teacher in Minnesota, Council Bluffs, and the Des Moines area. She worked on the administrative staff of Governor Tom Vilsack and as a Legislative Secretary in the Iowa House of Representatives. She has volunteered and worked in many campaigns and remains committed to mentoring young people who want to be in politics and run for public office. She and her husband reside in Des Moines, and she is a proud mother and grandmother. 

As a long-time Democratic party activist, I’ve met many candidates running for office over the years and have worked in campaigns and been involved at a grassroots level in Iowa elections. I have given my time and money, and tried to encourage and mentor those who are committed and know why they want to run for public office. I have been fortunate to work with and for people who believe they can make a difference. I love the idea that when I see good people run, and win or lose, I am still glad to have had the chance to be a part of their campaign. 

I have had the honor of working for Governor Tom Vilsack and alongside Democratic and Republican lawmakers at the state capitol. I feel my activism should continue and I have to stay involved and work to find and support candidates whose qualities and abilities to lead are evident.  However, more significantly is the candidate’s desire to be of public service and in the public arena at this time of polarization and disillusionment with government.

I believe the country’s future depends on electing strong and visionary candidates who give us hope. I am endorsing Jennifer Konfrst for Iowa’s third Congressional district. I am confident she is the best candidate to represent our district and can win.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column. This essay first appeared on Substack.

Why does Congress even bother to debate an annual budget?

Every year members of the federal legislative body spend innumerable hours in committees and on the House and Senate floor debating discretionary appropriations decisions. Intense negotiations sometimes produce some or all of the 12 regular mandatory appropriations bills that designate how various departments will spend funds in the coming fiscal year. (The federal fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30.)

The operative word there is “sometimes.” That’s because Congress usually can’t make its required appropriations decisions before the end of the current fiscal year. In those instances—which happen depressingly often—Congress may pass a continuing resolution that extends current levels of spending in those departments. When that happens, the legislators will then provide supplemental appropriations in the new fiscal year for needs or emergencies that arise. (Editor’s note: The last year Congress approved all twelve budget bills on time was 1996, for fiscal year 1997.)

Bill Bumgarner is a retired former health care executive from northwest Iowa who worked
in hospital management for 41 years, mostly in the state of Iowa.

Gun violence made headlines again on September 10.

As I write this, two children lay wounded following a school shooting in Colorado. Political commentator Charlie Kirk is dead, the victim of a single shot from a sniper while holding an event at a university in Utah.

Of course, the political class is offering thoughts and prayers. But there will be no meaningful action. Again. We already know that.

Yet, with every act of gun violence, I think back to a speech by Robert F. Kennedy, the former attorney general, U.S. senator and presidential candidate. He delivered these remarks at the Cleveland City Club, in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 5, 1968, the day following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Kenny Slocum is the naturalist and natural resource manager for the Clayton County Conservation Board.

I remember when I first moved back home to Iowa, I worked hard to identify plants mostly out of a desire to eat them. I would scour books on wild edibles, go out into the field, find what I thought looked like, say, chokecherry, come back home to double-check the references, and eventually give up because the field never matches the guide.

Foraged plate circa 2015

Eventually, Seek by iNaturalist came along and put those field guides right into the palm of my hand. Even better, the Almighty App rendered moot the tedious process of perusing all “ pink flowers,” or all “August bloomers,” or whatever section I had to examine based on how an author decided to organize his or her guide.

Suddenly, with a simple wave of the camera, I had my identification. Or so I thought.

Dave Busiek spent 43 years in Iowa radio and TV newsrooms, the last 30 years as news director at KCCI-TV in Des Moines. He writes the Substack newsletter Dave Busiek on Media, where this essay first appeared.

I recently came across a Facebook post that stopped me cold. It felt less like a feel-good story and more like a warning—a glimpse into what the future of local TV news may become if we’re not careful.

The post from August 29 shows a smiling young woman outside Mason City, Iowa, TV station KIMT’s studio in Rochester, Minnesota. Kamie Roesler writes,

“Walking out of work right now feeling accomplished tonight, not that anyone cares, but I will share anyway.”

The next sentence she shared made me, and a lot of other people care.