Opinion

By GARRISON KEILLOR

The $54 billion bonus heading for the Pentagon is a beautiful thing and so far I haven’t heard a dogbark against it, even though we don’t appear to have $54 billion worth of new enemies and we’ve now come to admire former enemy Vladimir Putin and the idea of throwing billions at the Islamic State is like going after bedbugs with bazookas, so there it sits, a big lake of cash waiting for water skiers.

CAPITOL LETTERS

BY STATE REPRESENTATIVE GARY WORTHAN

District 11, R-Storm Lake

BY ART CULLEN

The beginnings of an articulated lake management plan are being formed as Shorty’s Island is set for restoration this spring and summer. The Iowa Natural Resources Commission last week approved a $544,000 bid to firm up the deteriorating island just off the Lakeside Marina (formerly Shorty’s). The Big Island gets a facelift next year. We have spent years talking about it. Now the job is getting done.

EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK

BY ART CULLEN

Steve King was hanging in Twitterland with a Boy Named Gert over the weekend when the Kiron philosopher clued us that you can’t defend your culture using somebody else’s babies.

Gert Wilders is a Netherworld white nationalist who wants to run Holland. King is all for him. The congressman sends the regards of Orange City, I’m sure. When you think of Gert, you think of the neighbor lady Reding from St. Joe, not some fire-breathing knuckle-dragger from tulip holler.

Editor,

At what point do Congressman Steve King’s comments become outrageous enough for the voters of Iowa’s 4th congressional district to vote this guy out?

DAN DIERCKS 

Hagerstown, Ind. 

CAPITOL LETTERS

BY STATE SENATOR MARK SEGEBART

R-District 6

CAPITOL LETTERS

BY STATE REPRESENTATIVE DAN A. HUSEMAN

R-District 3, Aurelia

BY ART CULLEN

That the City of Storm Lake finds that it must pursue an abrupt divorce with Kinseth Hospitality over the management of King’s Pointe Resort is a sad ending to what was and could have been a prosperous partnership. The lack of clearly understood goals was fed by a lack of communication that owes to both sides in any marriage. As a result, the separation proceedings will be expensive.

The other day we asked our Republican representative, Gary Worthan, why he and other Republican politicians were supporting anti-worker amendments to the Iowa Workers Compensation laws. His explanation was that they were rectifying changes made to the laws in the last 10 years that transformed the courts into a “playground for plaintiff trial lawyers.”

This response was surprising coming from a “so-called” serious representative whose self-proclaimed motto is that “good legislation comes from good information.” It is also an explanation that is ludicrous on its face.

By GARRISON KEILLOR

Joe Biden is following me. I go to lunch at Mickey’s Diner and he’s sitting two stools away, wearing a stocking cap and a fake moustache with a fake nose and glasses but he says, “Hey, how’s it going, fella?” It’s Joe Biden. So pathetic. Sad.

He is conducting a destabilization campaign against me, putting chemicals in my food that make me behave erratically. Why?

Because he and his secret cabal are terrified of what I represent.