Editorials

EDITORIALS

BY ART CULLEN

Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, both Iowa Republicans, voted last weekend in a rush to confirm an unqualified judge in the person of Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. Grassley led the charge while Ernst rode along in a farce of a nomination process. Their vote followed accusations from a credible witness that Kavanaugh assaulted her. Other women made the same claim.

EDITORIAL

BY ART CULLEN

Everyone should be relieved that we have reached agreements on modifications to the North American Free Trade Agreement among the United States, Canada and Mexico. From an immediate reading Monday, the main changes involve percentages of cars that must originate in the United States, and changes were made to prevent Canada from dumping dried skim milk into the US market. President Trump called it a big win for farmers.

EDITORIALS

BY ART CULLEN

The immigration issue is hard to boil down into a polling question because of its many nuances. The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll this week posed an interesting, if simplistic, question about “who do you blame” — immigrants or employers — for our perceived problem. It showed that Iowans by a 4-to-1 margin blame employers but the blame on immigrants is rising. Our problem is with the premise.

EDITORIALS

BY ART CULLEN

EDITORIALS

BY ART CULLEN

EDITORIALS

BY ART CULLEN

We have been talking a lot about the Iowa Secretary of Agriculture’s race for a couple reasons: First, Tim Gannon of Mingo is running as a Democrat, and we are longtime friends. He did a lot to help direct state resources to Storm Lake as an aide to former Gov. Tom Vilsack, and we will never forget it. Mike Naig, the Republican candidate, is a graduate of Buena Vista University and an Emmetsburg native, which are two scores in his favor. Which leads us to the second point about why this race is so important:

EDITORIALS

BY ART CULLEN

A couple stories from The Des Moines Register over the past week illustrate how Iowa farmers are getting shortchanged in the Trump Administration’s roving trade wars. A Sept. 7 story reports that Iowa producers can expect to receive about $550 million in direct aid as part of a $12 billion emergency aid package wrought by tariffs applied to Iowa ag products by Mexico, Canada and China.

EDITORIALS

BY ART CULLEN

Nothing is more immediately urgent to Iowa than climate change, yet it receives relatively little of our attention. The political debate generally revolves around taxes, national security and Social Security, immigration, civil rights and abortion. Yet the biggest story playing out right now in Iowa is the wetter and warmer climate that is flooding Cedar Rapids this week.

EDITORIALS

BY ART CULLEN

EDITORIALS

BY ART CULLEN

Iowans should be grateful to Rob Tibbetts, father of the late Mollie Tibbetts, for reminding us of the values we shared with his daughter. In a brave eulogy at her funeral and in a letter to The Des Moines Register on Friday, he urged us to learn from her death by remembering what Mollie stood for, and to move past our bitter debates that attempted to draw in her memory.