Posted November 20, 2012in Featured Story, Iowa Watchdog
DES MOINES – Officials at the University of Iowa Hospital submitted bills to Medicare riddled with errors, sought reimbursement for treatments that were never given and overstated the number of procedures performed, according to a newly released report from the U.S. Inspector General’s Office. Federal investigators reviewed 321 outpatient and
Read More →
Posted November 20, 2012in Featured Story, Iowa Watchdog
DES MOINES — Iowa’s congressional candidates this election cycle spent more money than ever to expand their campaigns online, according to Federal Election Commission spending reports. But is anyone paying attention? The state follows a national trend in which the Internet has transformed the way politicians market themselves to voters,
Read More →
Posted November 14, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Mike Gronstal is more powerful than ever. Gay marriage is a dead issue. Bob Vander Plaats is irrelevant. Bruce Rastetter has wasted a lot of money. Tom Harkin now has to decide whether to run. Steve King is in Congress for life. Leonard Boswell peaked the night he was robbed.
Read More →
Posted November 14, 2012in Featured Story, Political Mercury
Much GOP hand-wringing in the election post-mortem necessarily centers on the canyon-sized advantage President Obama and the Democrats have with Latino voters. Having spent a good deal of time in Iowa’s Latino community, I can tell you this is deep and real. At Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s final Iowa
Read More →
Posted November 14, 2012in Featured Story, Food Dude
Two iconic restaurant companies have been moving into the Des Moines metro area after decades of avoiding it. Both provided interesting footnotes in the 2012 election. Pizza Ranch is the largest regional pizza company in Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas. Until recently it focused exclusively on small towns. Political notoriety
Read More →
Posted November 07, 2012in Featured Story, Food Dude
The story of Schlitz is a hubris-laden Greek tragedy taught in the finest business schools. It was the most popular beer in America from the end of the prohibition until the mid 1960s, when Robert Uihlein Jr. became president and chairman. That polo-playing Harvard graduate decided to let Anheuser-Busch sell
Read More →
Posted November 07, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Gerry Spence put on a show last week in Judge Robert Pratt’s federal courtroom. The flamboyant lawyer is representing Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee, who spent 26 years in prison for murder before the Iowa Supreme Court determined their trial was unfair. They were released in 2003 and never tried
Read More →
Posted November 06, 2012in Featured Story, Iowa Watchdog
DES MOINES — Outside spending for presidential and congressional campaigns have skyrocketed across the country this election cycle to more than $1 billion, including the nearly $32 million that has flowed into Iowa, according to figures from the Sunlight Foundation, a non-partisan group that tracks political spending. Outside spending groups
Read More →
Posted October 31, 2012in Featured Story, Food Dude
While checking out readers’ choices for Iowa’s ultimate places for steak, I happily discovered that steak dinners need not be a splurge. Chicago Speakeasy, the winner of the Cityview Ultimate Place for Steak Challenge, provides the best example of this. Its lunch menu offers some slightly smaller steak dinners, which
Read More →
Posted October 31, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
A friend — a droll and witty man who once was well-known in central Iowa — has Alzheimer’s Disease, and he knows it. The other day, a couple of his old pals went to visit him in the Alzheimer’s facility where he now lives. They asked him if he knew
Read More →
