…To the nation’s 14,000 air-traffic controllers — especially those who kept working without pay after the politicians closed down the government while continuing to get their own pay…and to the quarter-million or so of Iowans — including 50,000 in Polk County — whose SNAP benefits were cut off by those
Read More →One afternoon 50 years or so ago, when I was president of The Des Moines Register and Tribune, Bill Knapp called me. “What are you doing?” he asked, and before I could answer, he said: “I’m on my way to pick you up. We need to raise $250,000 this afternoon
Read More →When I was a boy — and that was not recently — I would take the bus downtown one afternoon a week to get allergy shots from Dr. Lou Noun. I would get off the bus at Sixth and Locust, go through the revolving doors into the Equitable Building,
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Posted July 09, 2018in Gartner Commentary
Bob Ray became governor by luck. He remained governor because he was a very decent man. He was beloved not because he was a visionary leader, but because he was a nice guy. He had one great moment — but it was so great that it permanently changed the face
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Posted November 15, 2016in Gartner Commentary
What now for the Republicans in the state of Iowa? The Iowa Republican Party has never been stronger. It now controls both houses of the Legislature, the Governor’s office, both Senate seats and three of the four Congressional seats. It can quickly pass whatever legislation it wants, and what it wants
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‘Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God.’
On Friday night, Sept. 4, 2009, just before the baseball game between the Iowa Cubs and the Albuquerque Isotopes was scheduled to start, Federal Judge Robert Pratt stepped to the microphone set up near home plate at Principal Park. He was fully robed. A court official had just announced that
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