June 6 is the anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy, France, in 1944. Many events will be held around the country in commemoration. We will hold one here in Storm Lake Friday, June 6, at …

Our admiration goes to the Davids of the world: those who stand up, speak out and fight back, refusing to let the Goliaths intimidate or silence them. A recent example is a story by Clark …

My mother watched six sons leave home to serve in the military. Mom was a great believer in the rosary. As a family we had our rosary half an hour every evening. There were no exceptions. She said we …

For U.S. farmers and ranchers, Thursday, May 22, was right out of a Dickens novel: It was the best of days and the worst of days. Early — and I do mean cow-milking early — that …

In April, I met Nancy, a parent of a disabled child enrolled in Medicaid.  With tears in her eyes, Nancy shared her story with me of her family being forced to deal with roadblocks and red …

“Not sure, we’ll have to wait and see” is a typically Midwestern way of declaring Hell No. What’s the weather have in store? Not sure, we’ll have to wait and see. …

Unless the senate steps in and imposes order, Congress is on track to cleave the coalition that has supported the farm bill and permanently weaken the crop safety net. The Big, Bad Bill passed the …

I’m back in the saddle after taking a hiatus last week so your reporter could attend the graduation of son Justin from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC. It was a very …

Last week, the Pentagon accepted the emir of Qatar’s gift of a Boeing 747, a $400 million bauble donated for our president to enjoy by a monarch whose family has ruled the tiny Mideast nation …

In March, Netflix released Adolescence, a four-part series that was based on real-life events where two young boys, in disparate parts of England, each killed a female peer. While the series creates …

Luke 10:30: King James Version, (KJV): A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half …

After graduating from St. Mary’s in 1963, for the summer I got a job as a deckhand on the dredge on Storm Lake. Additionally, after a brief few months at Devry Tech in Chicago, I returned to the dredge …

Kudos to ACLU of Iowa for calling out incivility. I have often questioned the professionalism and necessity of SLPD’s “funny” social media posts when they intentionally punch down. …

On Feb. 21, 2018, this space outlined my assessment of Congress’s meandering approach to the overdue 2018 Farm Bill. Don’t just polish the badly tarnished 2014 Farm Bill, I urged; write a …

As of May 1 — 101 days into Trump 2.0’s administration — the highly credible Bloomberg News reported over 328 lawsuits have been filed challenging Mr. Trump’s executive …

Round and round the circular conversation goes, right down the drain between my neighbor and me: “I like that DEI ban.” Okay, I can work with that. We can just call it something …

One must marvel at the incompetence that just gaveled to an untimely close in the capitol. With a stranglehold on all branches of government, Republicans failed to deliver on their priority — …

The Iowa Supreme Court gave citizen engagement and accessibility to public meetings a much-needed boost Friday in an appeal of a lawsuit against the Iowa City Community School District. The …

Back in the day, I made a lot of fun of George W. Bush. I didn’t think America could do much worse than electing him. Did we elect him, though? There was the whole Florida hanging-chad voting …

Have you ever heard someone refer to an “emolument” in a context other than the U.S. Constitution? Probably not. The word is somewhat archaic, and rarely appears other than as a reference …