Posted April 13, 2023in Morain
How important is it to maintain decorum in a legislative body? And how serious must a disruption of decorum by members be to justify their expulsion from that body? Pundits and politicians alike are asking those questions after the Republican supermajority in the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two Democratic
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Posted April 06, 2023in Morain
I need to apologize to the Iowa Hawkeye women’s basketball team for jinxing them in the NCAA tournament final game last Sunday. I didn’t wear my Hawkeye sweatshirt. I know, I was more than 700 miles from Dallas during the game. I know it wouldn’t have made any difference if
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Posted March 23, 2023in Morain
One state among the 50 registered an increase in the incidence of cancer in 2022. That would be Iowa. The only one. Only Kentucky ranked ahead of Iowa last year in the rate of its residents’ cancer cases. But Kentucky’s rate dropped last year. Iowa’s grew. The reasons for those
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Posted March 16, 2023in Morain
Words can convey both meaning and opinion. They therefore can be weaponized, stretched beyond their literal usage, to win favor, or to bully, or to slander. Propagandists know the power of words – that’s how they earn their daily bread. The word “hate” and its derivatives offer an example. Wordsmiths
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Posted March 09, 2023in Morain
Americans, as is our wont, continually focus on “the questions of the day.” Some of those issues change over time, but sometimes it takes a long time. And sometimes it’s a puzzlement why they were relevant in the first place. A few examples: 1. Why do we need to know
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Posted March 02, 2023in Morain
Most every morning I meet with a group at a coffee shop in Jefferson. It’s informal – anyone who shows up becomes a member for that morning. We number anywhere from two to 10. There’s no penalty for absence or tardiness. We have no official agenda. We discuss anything that
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Posted February 23, 2023in Morain
We’re about to find out if the name “Fox News” has any meaning. For two decades before January 2021, Fox News had the largest viewer audience in all of cable television. But that month both CNN and MSNBC overtook and surpassed it. The reason? In the weeks just before the
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Posted February 16, 2023in Morain
Public officials, both past and present, who refuse to testify or to answer a subpoena take a big risk. And they have no good choices. Governmental executives, like presidents and governors, who choose not to cooperate with investigators enjoy some legal protections. American jurisprudence in some instances grants them the
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Posted February 09, 2023in Morain
Diplomacy is not for amateurs. Members of our Congress can easily make it political. The ever-present complexity of foreign relations tempts some members of our government to take positions entirely for or against some nation, citing one side of its relationship to the United States and ignoring the other side.
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Posted February 02, 2023in Morain
Sometimes it’s easy to understand legislative proposals. Other times, not so much. House File 3, filed early in the 2023 session of the Iowa Legislature, falls in the second category. To understand its potential effect on needy people, take a quick look at two preexisting food programs whose nutritional goals
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