Dad wore polished black wing tips and a blue suit 24/7. He went to the Elks Lodge every day and to Mass every Sunday. He did not spit on the sidewalk. He helped to defeat Hitler, Mussolini and …

The Senate Agriculture Committee failed to pass its version of the five-year farm bill last week because of an argument over nutrition funding. Majority Leader John Thune, R-SD, instinctively blamed …

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is drawing major attention both in Storm Lake and around the world. Superhero movies are certainly no longer in their heyday, but the Wall-Crawler maintains his unique …

We’ve been in Michigan for the last few days. Over the weekend we were in Benton Harbor for a wedding, then took a side trip to the Upper Peninsula to visit famed vacation getaway Mackinac Island. …

Every day is another chapter of “As the Administration Churns”, the unending saga of incompetent boobs and skeevy manospherians. In late July, during U.S. Senate hearings, Senator Bernie …

Game shows have one virtue Iowa’s open-records enforcement system does not: Winners and losers know on the spot what prizes are theirs to keep. Hendrik Van Pelt learned this firsthand.  …

Many officeholders strongly advocate openness in government. Let all unclassified information out, and good things will happen. That’s a good idea, as far as it goes. But openness alone, even coupled with advocacy proposals, falls short of progress. To close …

Rob Sand, the Democratic candidate for governor, said in a recent news story that most folks don’t support a statewide moratorium on new data centers. Really? I think he’s flat-out wrong. …

We constantly read about drive by shootings, snipings and other gang-related crimes. These are not big city problems; they are everwhere. This is in contrast to the 30s when gang warfare was mostly a …

As an educator who’s spent years building a foundation for children, I believe that school choice is a foundational freedom that Iowans should have. Parents should be able to have more say over …

As State Auditor, I’ve been sounding the alarm on the unaccountable private school voucher program for years. Politicians who like to lie say it’s because I’m against private schools. That’s …

Iowa was at the forefront of creating a mobile driver’s license, and now that option is transitioning. The state was one of the first to offer citizens the ability to place their driver’s …

Those who wish me silent six feet under may be disappointed to hear that my blood test came back last week looking pretty good. Nine months following cancer surgery at the Mayo Clinic my …

Cherokee County officials devised a solar power and battery storage ordinance that prepares for 1990. Too bad it is 2026 and the locals put up a half-baked and pint-size response to a request by the …

Hardly a week goes by that we don’t get a press release from our United States Senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, hoopin’ and hollerin’ about waste, fraud and abuse in various government …

After the Soviet Union fell in 1991, a dad asked a local elementary school why the classroom maps for that part of the world still said “U.S.S.R.” The way he told it, the classroom teacher gave …

The Iowa Supreme Court typically opens its rulings on the state’s public-records and open-meetings laws by reciting that the cases start with a “presumption of openness.”  But a new …

In this 11th article it is my hope that by sharing these stories, we can all get to know our community a little better. I feel thankful to have met so many amazing people in the Storm Lake area who …

Last week I focused my column on my dreams for American foreign policy. This week I embarked on Chapter Two, this time for our government’s domestic policy. I quickly discovered this focus is …

In America’s 250 year history, only five wars were formally declared by congress as required by Article I of the U.S. Constitution. They and the respective president are the War of 1812 (James …