Posted April 15, 2013in Featured Story, Iowa Watchdog
One of the worst kept secrets in Iowa is that U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, is considering a run for governor. Many in Iowa’s Democratic Party see Vilsack as potentially the only one among them capable of beating Republican Gov. Terry Branstad in a 2014 match-up. Vilsack,
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Posted April 11, 2013in Featured Story, Iowa Watchdog
DES MOINES — A highly- touted and much-anticipated Iowa agency aimed at improving government transparency is in jeopardy just three months before it’s set to open its doors because of concerns over funding. The Iowa Public Information Board, created at the urging of Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, has been meeting
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Posted April 10, 2013in Featured Story, Political Mercury
U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, who recently has characterized his likelihood of running for the Senate as something of a toss-up, went further last Monday. “I think that needle’s just a little over 50-50 right now, just a little over,” King said in an interview. Speaking after an economic-development session
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Posted April 10, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
The Des Moines Register had a little two-paragraph item in the sports section the other day that said Iowa State University made $15,366 from its participation in the Liberty Bowl. The university got $964,500 in bowl revenue and had $949,134 in bowl expenses, the item noted. Geez, Skinny wondered, how
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Posted April 10, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
Recent news from the fast food wars came with a measure of shock if not awe. After surviving 10 years of economic booms and bust without a single decrease in monthly sales, McDonald’s suddenly experienced declines in three of the last six months. Wendy’s and Burger King took significant territory
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Posted April 08, 2013in Featured Story, Iowa Watchdog
DES MOINES – Iowa officials have declined a Watchdog.org request to review even a fraction of the state’s $100 million in welfare transactions, claiming there are no records because current law doesn’t require state oversight. “There is nothing in either federal or Iowa law for the time period in question
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Posted April 08, 2013in Featured Story, Iowa Watchdog
DES MOINES – It’s been more than two months since Iowa Department of Human Services officials were asked to disclose detailed information about where welfare dollars are spent and the information has yet to be released. State officials stalled without noting a reason for the delay in providing a response
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Posted April 03, 2013in Featured Story, Political Mercury
In Mark Segebart’s world, the minimum wage is a quaint notion, something along the lines of an allowance. Make your bed. Clean your room. Flip some burgers after school, and you’ll get $7.25 an hour, enough to take your best girl to the sock hop with some spare change to
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Posted April 03, 2013in Featured Story, Food Dude
From a bird’s eye perspective, the great story of 20th century Iowa was the movement of people from farms all over the state to a few cities and many suburbs. One-seventh of the way through the 21st century, nothing brings out suburban Iowa’s inner farm child like the opening of
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Posted March 27, 2013in Featured Story, Political Mercury
Iowa Republican insiders tell Political Mercury they’re planning on rolling out an unconventional political makeover of Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, one fraught with potential trip wires that could confound her ambitions to become the first female governor or U.S. senator in Hawkeye State history. But GOP sources see the move
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