Posted April 29, 2025in Stray Thoughts
Give Governor Kim Reynolds credit for consistency. When it comes to wanting to hide details of possible misstatements or misdeeds, she treats Lutherans and atheists alike. Soon, Iowans may learn important lessons about “executive privilege” claims by the governor and whether they provide her any cover to keep staff documents
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Posted April 22, 2025in Stray Thoughts
As we approach the second anniversary of a tragedy that shocked the people of Davenport and brought national attention to the issue of building safety, government secrecy continues to cloud public understanding of just what happened and who to hold accountable. The tragedy occurred a few minutes before 5 p.m.
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Posted April 14, 2025in Stray Thoughts
A constitutional showdown taking shape in southern Iowa’s Decatur County could put taxpayers on the hook financially to defend the county’s efforts to silence a critic of public officials there. The Institute for Justice, a national nonprofit law firm, wrote Decatur County Attorney Alan Wilson last week expressing its concerns
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Posted March 31, 2025in Stray Thoughts
Growing up in the 1950s, Evans family vacations seem typical by rural Midwest standards: car trips to the Ozarks, the Black Hills, Nauvoo and New Salem in Illinois, or St. Louis for a Cardinals baseball game. But one memorable summer trip, around 1960, occurred when we motored north through
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Posted March 25, 2025in Stray Thoughts
As the president, governors and legislators elevate the stress and anxiety in higher education in the United States by seeking to change how colleges and universities operate and what they teach, the contrast between how an Ivy League school and an Iowa university responded shows the courage gap among college
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Posted February 24, 2025in Stray Thoughts
Iowa taxpayers provided about $104 million last school year directly to parents choosing to send their K-12 children to private schools. The price tag for these education savings accounts, or vouchers, is expected to climb to $294 million this school year as more families become eligible. During the 2025-2026 school
Read More →Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird again tried to put herself in the national spotlight last week as leader of a group of Republican attorneys general who fixed their sights on Costco over the warehouse retailer’s DEI policies. The state attorneys sent a stern warning letter telling the company, “We …
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Posted January 27, 2025in Stray Thoughts
I was in Eagle Grove last week. Like many travelers in Iowa, I stopped at Casey’s before leaving town. Eagle Grove is a meatpacking community, and many jobs are held by Hispanic men and women. As I waited with my coffee in the check-out line, I was behind a Hispanic
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Posted January 20, 2025in Stray Thoughts
Gov. Terry Branstad was frustrated eight years ago with what he believed was the inability of officials to tell the public why a government employee was fired or resigned under pressure. When the Legislature convened in 2017, he shepherded through the Legislature important new language in the public records
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Posted January 06, 2025in Stray Thoughts
I have been kicking myself since being reminded that procrastination comes with a price. This lesson arrived the week before Christmas when I spotted a small obituary in the Bloomfield Democrat. Seven succinct paragraphs informed readers of the death of Titus Wagler, 66, a longtime Davis County business owner. In
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