Is Burns for Cruz or against him?

Alas, I’ve recycled my old copies of Cityview. Otherwise I could look up a previous Political Mercury wherein I believe Douglas Burns backed Sen. Ted Cruz, based on Rep. Steve King’s assurances that Cruz was for leveling the playing field for ethanol and oil by reducing or eliminating subsidies to both industries. In his latest column, Burns derides Cruz for opposing the Renewable Fuel Standard but supporting Big Oil. Does my memory deceive me, or was Burns for Cruz before he was against him?

Jeni Nosbisch
-Des Moines

YMCA needs to dive in
In about 22 weeks, elite swimmers from across the nation will converge on Omaha for the U.S. Olympic Trials. These athletes will warm up and compete in two 50-meter temporary swimming pools to be placed on the floor of the CenturyLink Center. Myrtha Pools, a global leader that has perfected the technology of temporary pools, supplied pools to the Omaha swim trials in 2008, 2012 and again this year. Once the Olympic swim teams are chosen, the 2016 pools will be disassembled and sold. Groups in California, Massachusetts, Virginia and Omaha bought pools from previous events. It would be great to know that the YMCA board of directors has an offer for one of this year’s pools. But a civic group in West Fargo, North Dakota, announced on Jan. 6 that they purchased the competition pool for $900,000. I guess finding scapegoats down at the Y is way more fun than actually diving into the water.

John Morrissey
-Des Moines

Dangerous water hurts our children
Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan campaigned on deregulation and has made it a centerpiece of his administration by claiming it would cut costs of government. Recently, instead of bragging about cost cutting, he was trying to explain why he and his staff ignored and dismissed the warnings for 16 months that the public water in Flint was poisoned with lead. The result of his reckless deregulation binge is that thousands of Flint children were poisoned by the lead in the drinking water. Snyder’s staff ignored warnings from the federal EPA in February and again in April 2015 that state tests weren’t adequately measuring lead levels. Snyder’s cost cutting was a reckless Republican deregulation experiment that resulted in thousands of children’s poisoning. Now he’s pleading with President Obama to have the federal government come to his rescue. Beware, Gov. Terry Branstad, as you ignore Bill Stowe’s warning about the dangerous nitrate levels in Iowa water. Be careful, Sen. Joni Ernst, as you attempt to weaken the EPA’s Clean Water Act. You both have a responsibility to keep our children safe and reduce the pollutants that Iowa agriculture is flushing down to the Gulf of Mexico.

Rick Smith
-Urbandale

Make America great again
-“Make America great again” is the campaign mantra we are hearing from some presidential candidates, some of whom claim to speak out of their Christian convictions. I have difficulty finding any resemblance in the biblical message of Isaiah 58 to the harsh and mean-spirited rhetoric and backbiting I hear from some presidential candidates, some of whom claim to be Bible-believers. There is a terrible discrepancy between their recipe for making America great and what Scripture teaches about a nation doing what is right and being a light in the world.

Rev. Vernon H. Naffier
-Ankeny