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

I had a commentary on foreign policy on my mind for this week. I still do. But it can wait. The attempted attack at the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington last Saturday can’t.

It’s sadly ironic that the terrifying disruption of the dinner, just as it was getting underway, took place at an event designed to honor the First Amendment. Violence is the antithesis of free speech. It seeks to erase and replace open dialogue and the exchange of ideas, silencing them instead.

But it’s not really a surprise in the U.S. these days. Our country harbors a growing number of individuals who see violence as the answer to their hopes, concerns, and challenges. If that involves diverting or eradicating other people’s freedoms and rights, so be it.

I literally shook my head as I read Alex Isenstadt’s scoop for Axios this week: Vice President JD Vance plans to come to Iowa on April 30 to campaign with U.S. Representative Zach Nunn. Isenstadt wrote that the vice president’s appearances (one with Nunn and another at a Turning Point USA rally in Ames) “will be aimed at helping Republicans in this fall’s elections.”

More likely, a joint event with Vance will hurt Nunn’s chances in one of the country’s top-targeted U.S. House districts.

No one could accuse me of being too optimistic about Democratic prospects in Iowa’s statewide elections. But if there’s one race I’m bullish on, it’s the third Congressional district. National forecasters currently rate this district as a toss-up (Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball) or lean Republican (Inside Elections).

I see this race tilting in favor of the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sarah Trone Garriott. Let’s walk through the reasons.

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.

A contrast between President Harry Truman and our would-be King Donald Trump is relevant and overdue because of the need to hold Trump accountable by the courts and the voters — given the failure of Congress to rein Trump in. For that, thanks go in part to Iowa’s U.S. senators and representatives, who support the reign of Trump whenever push comes to shove and promote his endorsement if seeking election.

So here is a contrast that leads to a look at our situation in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.

I find a lot of reasons to admire Harry Truman — almost as many as I find to loathe Donald Trump. On the one hand, maybe it’s because of time spent in research at the Truman library in Independence, Missouri. Reading hundreds of letters to and from Truman during his years in office and having access to resources that tell you about the man. Perhaps the key impression for me is how Truman distinguished between the Office of the President, which merited respect, just shy of worship, and the person in the office, who was fair political game.

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.

Talk about being a slow learner! It took me 75 to 80 years or more to recognize that our national anthem’s ending was not a proclamation, declaration, or a boast about the United States being “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

But there it was in the text for the national anthem on our TV screen. The line about being free and brave ended with a question mark, not an exclamation point or even a modest period: “…the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

I even checked the lyrics of the Star-Spangled Banner, to make sure Francis Scott Key penned a question on September 18, 1814, and the ? was not a scurrilous punctuation, stuck in by someone protesting the state of our nation. The accuracy of the question mark was confirmed, of course.

Many readers may wonder — as I do — how could a person have missed the ? for all these decades, through singing the national anthem hundreds of times.

Linda Schreiber writes commentary on selected political or legislative issues.

Big promises, but no appropriations

At the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace, President Donald Trump announced that nine member countries had pledged $7 billion toward rebuilding Gaza — and that the United States would contribute $10 billion.

There is one glaring problem: Congress has not appropriated a single dollar for this commitment.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the power of the purse belongs to Congress. No matter how boldly announced, a $10 billion commitment does not exist without legislative approval. Yet the president presented the pledge as if the funds were already secured.

That is not diplomacy. That is theater.

House File 2676 may not be the most harmful of the 80-plus bills the Iowa House approved last week. And language allowing pharmacists to dispense ivermectin without a prescription may not be the most harmful provision of that so-called “Make America Healthy Again” bill.

But the brief Iowa House debate about ivermectin on March 3 illustrated how conspiracy theories—once confined to fringe elements of the conservative movement—now drive the mainstream Republican agenda.

Jack Hatch is a former state senator and was an author of every health care reform bill in Iowa from 2003 through 2014.

Health care is not a privilege. It is not a reward for good luck, good jobs, or good timing. It is a basic right. And in Iowa, health care, as an issue, has always been understood best when we remember that simple truth. There is another truth: health care is too expensive, in Iowa and across the U.S. 

For decades, our state has shown that when we lead with fairness, openness, and shared responsibility, we can build systems that work. Iowa passed meaningful health care reforms prior to the Affordable Care Act. We created bipartisan commissions to make policy. We listened to consumers, providers and other stakeholders. We debated publicly. And we acted with courage.

That tradition expanded children’s coverage to become the state with the highest percentage per capita for children covered by insurance in the nation as listed by the Kaiser Family Foundation (now known as KFF) in 2013. We led when we modernized health records. We led when we built patient-centered care. We led when we believed that health care reform required public conversation, not private contracts.

Dean Lerner served Iowa as an Assistant Attorney General for sixteen years, Chief Deputy Secretary of State for four years, and about ten years as Deputy Director, then Director of the Department of Inspections & Appeals. He then worked for the CMS Director of the Division of Nursing Homes, and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. He is a graduate of Grinnell College and Drake University Law School.

During his interminable State of the Union address, President Donald Trump referred to waste, fraud, and abuse. Of course, such mention was opportunistically political, containing recurrent condemnations of the Somali community, a favorite target of our president’s vile rhetoric. 

While waste, fraud, and abuse is a worthy topic and should be condemned and eliminated, a more introspective approach would have better served our nation.

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.

Periodically historians and scholars assess and rank the performance of U.S. presidents. It’s an exercise with no sure answer – a matter of opinion informed by study, observation and perspective, also influenced by a measure of one’s political worldview.  

While interesting on their face, presidential greatness studies can also serve to remind us of the leadership values that brought out the best in America – and warn us that presidential judgement can be terribly misguided, even corrupt. 

Projects evaluating presidential achievement have occurred for decades. The Schlesinger surveys are well known to presidential historians. The first was conducted in 1948 by Arthur Schlesinger Sr., a Harvard University historian, with a follow-up project in 1962. Others came after, to include a survey by his son in 1996. Like his father, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was a historian at Harvard.

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

Soybeans and I go back a long way. In the late 1950s, my dad began experimenting with soybeans as an alternative cash crop. He planted a small field in the corner of the farm, as far from the road as possible. That was a good idea—weed control in soybeans involved a learning curve. From the beginning it involved “walking beans” (hand weeding), so I literally got to know soybeans “from the ground up.”

At that time the landscape of North Central Iowa was very different from the dominant corn-soybean rotation we see today. Our 160 acres grew a rotation of corn, oats, and an alfalfa-grass mix. The mix was used for both hay and pasture for the dairy herd which was Dad’s primary livestock enterprise. He also raised hogs and maintained a flock of laying hens.

“Coordination between Grassley and the F.B.I.’s office of congressional affairs was unusually close throughout the year,” Emily Bazelon and Rachel Poser reported for the New York Times Magazine on January 22.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley was not the main focus of “A Year Inside Kash Patel’s F.B.I.,” a must-read investigation of changes that are “undermining the agency and making America less safe,” according to knowledgeable insiders. But as Bazelon and Poser interviewed dozens of current and former FBI employees, Iowa’s senior senator came up repeatedly.

Grassley’s oversight work as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee led to career agents or supervisors being forced out, in some cases with no investigation supporting their alleged wrongdoing.

The New York Times Magazine article has so far received little attention from the Iowa media. Local journalists with access to Grassley’s weekly conference calls and recorded interviews with hand-picked reporters should ask the senator about some of the troubling details Bazelon and Poser uncovered. (His staff rarely reply to my emails and do not allow me to participate in any of his media availabilities.)

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.

Our system of government has long been recognized and valued for what makes it worthwhile and workable—the checks and balances the U.S. Constitution provides among and between the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of federal and state governments,

End of civics lesson.

That’s because the system is being abandoned, essentially junked, at democracy’s peril. Thanks to Donald Trump’s endless provocations and abuse of power, a politicized version of Whack-A-Mole is replacing our checks and balances. 

Iowa’s all-Republican Congressional delegation votes in unison on almost every resolution or bill. But last week, U.S. Representatives Zach Nunn (IA-03) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) each parted ways with most of their GOP colleagues on high-profile measures.

Nunn and Miller-Meeks are among the country’s most vulnerable U.S. House incumbents. They have largely supported President Donald Trump’s agenda and remained loyal to House GOP leaders. But in recent weeks, they have taken different paths on an issue likely to be at the center of their 2026 re-election campaigns.

And while Nunn publicly explained why he supported a Democratic bill on health insurance subsidies, Miller-Meeks drew no attention to her votes to override Trump’s vetoes of two uncontroversial bills.

Nunn’s political strategy is easier to understand than Miller-Meeks’. But it may be just as risky.

John and Terri Hale own the The Hale Group, an Ankeny-based advocacy firm focused on older Iowans. Reach them at terriandjohnhale@gmail.com

Frustrated. Angry. Scared.

That’s how many older Iowans and Iowans with disabilities feel about the economic realities of their lives.

They are struggling to pay the bills. They’re frustrated about the rising cost of living. And they’re worried about the future.

We’ve heard from them at recent forums in the Quad Cities, Des Moines, and Ankeny, in conversations with friends and acquaintances, and in social media messages.

They’ve given us an earful. The key takeaways:

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.

A few days ago a team effort by U.S. military, intelligence, and law enforcement personnel seized Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and took them into American custody. The move has overwhelmed the news cycle across America, and much of the world as well.

The couple, now arraigned and in federal detention in Brooklyn, New York, will be tried in federal court on charges involving narcoterrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation, high-powered weapons possession, bribery, and fomenting kidnappings and murders.

There’s way too much involved here to unpack fully in a column like this one. The challenge is to drill down to the incident’s essential significance: Why did it happen? What important events led up to it? And what is it likely to mean for the people of Venezuela and their resources?

Steve Corbin is emeritus professor of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa and a contributing columnist to 246 newspapers and 48 social media platforms in 45 states, who receives no remuneration, funding, or endorsement from any for-profit business, nonprofit organization, political action committee, or political party. 

Maria Farmer reported her sexual assault by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to the New York Police Department and the FBI on August 29, 1996. Ms. Farmer contacted the FBI as advised by the police. On September 3, 1996, the FBI identified the case as “child pornography,” since naked or semi-naked hard copy pictures existed.

Files including Farmer’s 1996 complaint were not required to be made public until late 2025. President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law on November 19. The law required that all files be released by December 19. But under the leadership of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice (DOJ) failed to release 100 percent of the files.

Xavier Carrigan is a Democratic candidate in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

For many Americans, foreign policy feels distant. Something that happens elsewhere, debated by experts and pundits, far removed from daily life.

But what the United States has done in Venezuela, and what it is now demanding in the aftermath, should concern anyone who believes power ought to have limits.

By launching a military strike in Caracas and forcibly removing Venezuela’s head of state, the U.S. crossed more than a geopolitical line. It established a precedent. One that says sovereignty is conditional, international law is negotiable, and accountability depends less on principle than on alignment.

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, in two parts.

The American writer James Agee, together with photographer Walker Evans, in 1941 released Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a book documenting the lives of impoverished Southern sharecroppers during the Depression.

The title is an apt referent for the subjects of this column: men and women whom I admire for what they have done for other human beings, this year and/or in past years. They aren’t all necessarily famous, but they deserve to be. Others certainly earn my admiration as well, but putting together my year-end list, it’s hard for me not include ten of them up front.

The envelopes please, in no particular order:

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 eight years.

On January 13, 1982, a Boeing 737 took off from Washington National Airport. About one minute later, it struck the 14^th Street bridge and plunged into the Potomac River. The flight crew and more than 70 passengers perished. One of the passengers, Priscilla Tirado, could be seen flailing around in the icy waters. A bystander on the shoreline, Lenny Skutnik, a Congressional Budget Office employee, responded to her desperate screams for help, pulled off his coat and shoes, jumped into the river, and saved her life. Two weeks later, President Ronald Reagan hailed Skutnik as a hero in his State of the Union address.

A less publicized story is that of Senator Cory Booker, who, while serving as mayor of Newark, New Jersey in 2012, risked his life by running into a burning, smoke-infested building and saving the life of a neighbor.

Why do individuals like Skutnik and Booker engage in such extraordinary acts of altruism?

Jill Norton is a former forest fire fighter, high school teacher, and library director.

My family attends Iowa Irish Fest downtown in Waterloo, Iowa, on Sunday. We arrive early and gain entrance in exchange for cans of food for the Northeast Iowa Food Bank. We listen to mass from the mainstage and scoot off to Jameson’s for what I imagine is the most authentic Full Irish breakfast around. That is, until last year when the establishment changed owners and mass-produced mush was served on Styrofoam plates, and this year when the meal was deemed unprofitable and discontinued altogether.

The Full Irish is an Irish mainstay: soda bread, baked beans, grilled tomato, mushrooms, rashers (linked sausages), thick bacon, eggs, and white and black pudding—which is lard, grain, spices, and blood for the black version, in a sausage-like patty. Inasmuch as food speaks to the heart, this plate of real Ireland will be missed.

No, we’re not Irish, as far as we know. We just enjoy Irish Fest. And we’ve traveled to Ireland. Before and after my travels I endeavored to learn all I could about Ireland and was fascinated, starting with the mythology. Why do we learn about Hercules but not Cúchulainn?

Ralph Rosenberg served in the Iowa legislature from 1981 through 1994 and was director of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission from 2003 through 2010. A version of this essay first appeared on Substack.

The political landscape is full of what many Democrats view as signs of hope: a Democrat won Miami’s mayoral race, Indiana’s state Senate rejected mid-cycle gerrymandering, and in Tennessee’s seventh District, a Trump +22 cushion collapsed into single digits—what observers called a “stress fracture on a main beam.”

Add to that viral clips of an exhausted-looking president, negative polling numbers, and systemic problems at agencies like the FBI, and you can see why people opposed to Donald Trump and his policies are feeling optimistic.

But don’t get too confident about long-term impact. Beneath these celebratory headlines lies a dangerous form of “strategic negligence.”

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

Last month, my sister and I stood looking at a low-lying, long-neglected wire fence we knew well as children. It’s the “creek fence,” (pronounced “crick”) and often we were tasked with catapulting organic detritus, like chicken bones, over the fence, into nature.

The two of us recalled six decades ago, when a younger brother, maybe age four, remained in the car while Mom reentered the house to fetch a forgotten item. Evidently, the car wasn’t in “park” and began rolling slowly down a slight decline toward the creek fence, after which the descent becomes quite abrupt. Gaining momentum, the car hit the fence; magically, miraculously, rusty wires held… God with us.

My transition: This fence is a bit like our country’s jurisprudence system, prompting me to write about the federal employee who threw a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

What makes freedom of speech so difficult to understand and accept?

That question came up during a recent discussion at the Des Moines Valley Friends Meeting. The Friends invited me to speak at the gathering that coincided with the 50th anniversary of the December 15, 1975 bombing of the Friends meeting house and the adjacent American Friends Service Committee building at 42nd Street and Grand Avenue in Des Moines.

Police never located the bomber, so no criminal charges were filed. Consensus remains that someone planted the explosives who disliked the Quakers’ and AFSC’s opposition to the Vietnam war, their support of non-violence, and their humanitarian relief efforts in Vietnam after the war.

I reminded the audience of what Mary Autenrieth of Paullina, the chair of the AFSC’s regional policy board 50 years ago, told The Des Moines Register then: “I expect in a nation where open disagreement is encouraged, there are some who disagree with us. But I would expect that they would not use violence in answer.”

Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, I’ve sometimes wondered: is there anything this president could do that Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird would find objectionable?

We got the answer this week, when Bird and counterparts from seven other Republican-controlled states quietly expressed “concerns” about one of Trump’s actions.

You’ll never guess why.

Wendy Larson will be the newest Republican in the Iowa House, after winning the December 9 special election in House district 7 by a margin of 2,817 votes to 1,201 for Democratic candidate Rachel Burns (70.0 percent to 29.9 percent). Larson’s victory brings the GOP majority in the chamber back to 67-33. Her predecessor, State Representative Mike Sexton, stepped down in September to take a senior position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The special election outcome was almost a foregone conclusion in one of the state’s reddest legislative districts. House district 7, covering Sac, Pocahontas, and Calhoun counties, plus some rural areas of Webster County, contains more registered Republicans than Democrats and no-party voters combined. Donald Trump received nearly 75 percent of the vote here in 2024, well above the 55.7 percent he received statewide in Iowa.

Still, I was closely watching the race to see what the results might tell us about voter enthusiasm and changing preferences going into the 2026 midterms.

It’s hard to draw any broad conclusions from this election, but I have a few takeaways.

Sue Dinsdale is the Executive Director of Iowa Citizen Action Network and the State Lead for Health Care for America NOW.

Millions of Americans are struggling with the high cost of services and goods this holiday season, as politicians in Congress seem stuck in the past rather than looking out for our future. The Affordable Care Act was passed fifteen years ago and has been fully in effect for more than a decade. Despite its proven track record and majority support for the law, here we are again.

There’s no better example than the current health care affordability crisis. It’s not new, but the fight is coming to a head as Republicans in Congress continue to refuse to extend the premium tax credits that millions of people depend on for Affordable Care Act marketplace coverage. Failure to extend the credits could cause 4 million people to drop their health insurance, while millions more would pay double, triple, or more to keep their coverage. 

“Good job you did! Great job,” President Donald Trump says to U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks in a 30-second commercial that has reached thousands of Iowans on the radio or social media platforms over the past month.

The three-term Republican did not place the ads through her campaign committee, which had accumulated more than $2.6 million cash on hand as of September 30.

Instead, Miller-Meeks—considered one of the country’s most vulnerable House Republicans—has used taxpayer funds to share Trump’s praise with Iowans.

Bleeding Heartland’s review of data from Facebook’s ad library and Federal Communications Commission files suggest that Miller-Meeks’ Congressional office has spent at least $10,000 to run this spot. (Several other taxpayer-funded radio ads have also been in rotation this fall.)

If the 2024 campaign is any indication, Miller-Meeks may spend much more from her Congressional office budget in the coming months, as she seeks to shore up her appeal with conservatives before another competitive primary election in Iowa’s first district.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

There seems to be a lack of consistency—if not outright contradictions—in President Donald Trump’s approach to drug trafficking into the United States.

Recent news headlines bear out the disconnect between what the president says and what he does.

One thing is certain: Donald Trump’s mixed messaging illustrates our nation’s lack of a coherent federal strategy for dealing with the scourge of illicit drugs.

See what you think about these questions of death and liberty.

Steve Corbin is emeritus professor of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa and a contributing columnist to 246 newspapers and 48 social media platforms in 45 states, who receives no remuneration, funding, or endorsement from any for-profit business, nonprofit organization, political action committee, or political party. 

Several university leaders have expressed shock when actions by President Donald Trump and administration officials directly counter to what he and his appointees supposedly learned during their business-related college education. But, what do professors know?

I’ve been privileged to teach and serve as a Marketing department head at an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business-accredited institution. (Only 6 percent of business schools worldwide achieve AACSB recognition.) In that role, I became familiar with the multi-year process that third-party evaluators—including corporate executives—use to rigorously examine the curriculum offerings of accounting, economics, finance, management and marketing. That process considers what principles well-trained business students should exemplify.

Our 47th president has cultivated an image as a successful businessman. So it’s telling that leaders of Fortune 500 companies have been alarmed by how Trump and his administration ignore basic business principles.

Even for President Donald Trump, who lobs public insults on a daily basis, this one stood out. During a November 14 gaggle with journalists on Air Force One, Trump tried to silence a reporter asking about the Epstein files: “Quiet. Quiet, Piggy.”

The target of his childish name-calling was Bloomberg News correspondent Catherine Lucey, and she has an Iowa connection.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

Recent events in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport provide stark reminders that our nation’s leaders have seemingly forgotten a biblical command around for the ages.

It is one Robert Ray followed during his tenure as Iowa governor, which ended some 42 years ago.

Ray was front of mind as I digested the news last week. His service contrasted with the haunting picture the three easily missed events presented of who we are as Americans and who we are becoming.

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.

President Donald Trump compares himself—always favorably—to previous U.S. presidents, particularly George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Trump has faulted Lincoln for not avoiding a Civil War. Our current president is a self-styled peacemaker, claiming to have ended eight wars in eight months—which would be more wars solved than bankruptcies he presided over as a businessman. (That would be four or six bankruptcies, depending on whether you count three of the bankruptcies as one, as Trump does.) The BBC examined the supposed peace agreements—which may or may not have staying power—and how much credit the president deserves for each one.

Some observers of Trump’s governing style see more alarming historical analogies. They may liken the United States in the 2020s to the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

If you’re not satisfied with these comparisons and contrasts, consider another: Trump and Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (37-68 AD). He’s better known in the Western World as Nero, the Roman emperor (54-68) who supposedly fiddled while Rome burned in the year 64.

Mandi Remington is the founding director of Corridor Community Action Network and a Johnson County supervisor. 

There is a line between hard bargaining and cruelty. When a government begins to weaponize basic means of survival, it crosses into dangerous territory. The decision to withhold Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—paired with Congressional plans to slash Medicaid and SNAP funding—isn’t just another partisan fight. It’s a turning point.  

For the first time in SNAP’s 60-year history, families aren’t receiving the benefits they depend on. For many, that means empty refrigerators, skipped meals, and trying to explain to their kids why they can’t buy more food. This is a conscious choice by the Trump administration, as Congress has already appropriated billions of dollars in a contingency fund to cover SNAP during government shutdowns. 

My own family has relied on SNAP. When my oldest child was diagnosed with celiac disease at three years old, we stopped going to free meal programs because there was no way for me to know which foods were safe for her to eat. I couldn’t bring myself to ask volunteers to sort through ingredients or make special accommodations when we were there for help that was supposed to be simple. 

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.

This is a quick post about two things to watch for in today’s elections for governor in New Jersey and Virginia.

At long last, U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra confirmed on October 28 that he’s running for governor.

For all of his talk about “taking Iowa to new heights”—and boy, was there a lot of it—the Republican front-runner’s rollout won’t get high marks.

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.

When ideology takes top priority, America’s world leadership is in jeopardy.

The Trump administration’s threats to academic freedom at leading U.S. universities could slow the pace of scientific research and commercial development of research findings. For instance, federal devotion to right-wing “purity” could undermine our race to stay ahead of China—which should disturb Americans of every political stripe.

President Donald Trump has threatened to cut grant funding (and in some cases followed through on those threats) in his effort to wipe out diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) practices, as well as supposed “woke” ideology (whatever that is), at a number of leading institutions of higher education.

One example, out of many dozens: the administration has frozen $175 million in grant money at the University of Pennsylvania—Trump’s alma mater—because the university allowed a transgender female on its women’s swimming team three years ago.

Steve Corbin is emeritus professor of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa and a contributing columnist to 246 newspapers and 48 social media platforms in 45 states, who receives no remuneration, funding, or endorsement from any for-profit business, nonprofit organization, political action committee, or political party. 

Since the 1960s, think tanks and advocacy groups have been key influencers of presidential policymaking. For decades, Democratic and Republican presidents have relied on think tanks for research and policy ideas. Most recently think tank roles have shifted from advisory to actual policy formulation and implementation, whereby the president can be seen as a marionette controlled by the think tank puppeteers.

Research shows that in the first 285 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency, seven conservative organizations have had hundreds of their recommendations implemented. If your mind has been spinning over the drastic changes to the federal government and how Trump has abandoned many norms of domestic policy and international diplomacy, you may wonder who is pulling the president’s strings.

Let’s examine the seven think tank puppeteers that have influenced Trump’s administration since January 20 and will likely continue to play that role until January 2029.

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.

As I write this column, the United States government is still shut down. Federal employees are not getting paid.

No, wait, that’s not quite true. Most federal employees are not getting paid.

Who’s still receiving a paycheck?

That would be President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, members of Congress, and federal judges. The Constitution requires that they be paid no matter what. Their staffs—and those amount to many thousands of people—are continuing to work, but without receiving their salaries. They’ll be entitled to their back pay once the government reopens.

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.

As my wife and I, both spry seventy-somethings, walked the state capitol complex sidewalks to the No Kings rally on October 18, I couldn’t help but notice the gathering crowd and remarking, “I’d feel better about this if the majority of people here didn’t have grey hair.”

photo by Dan Piller from the No Kings rally outside the Iowa state capitol

I put down the seeming preponderance of the Medicare set at the Des Moines rally to Iowa’s elder-leaning demographics. But the next day, Fox News and the right-wing echo chamber used the apparent senior citizen majority of the No Kings crowds elsewhere as their prime talking point. The rallies were impressive in their numbers, but nonetheless may be remembered as the Last Hurrah of a generation with enough wit to make clever signs.

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.

In my reading over the last couple of weeks, I came upon the following dialogue that someone referenced from Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises.

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

That exchange came back to me as I participated in a No Kings gathering in Spirit Lake, Iowa on October 18.