Letters to the Editor: Of war and democracy

When I search for an escape and excuse from putting my Federal income tax bombs together and collating 2023 documents to fund our foreign war efforts, I, too, seek refuge from serious world problems such as elections and the rule of law.  Movies always work.

The latest bad iteration of the Ghost Busters franchise at the Vista comes to mind and fits the bill. I suppose I could stream the “Storm Lake” documentary from a bomb shelter closer to home, if the Starlink still works, after the stuff gets real. There are evil forces afoot, named Vlad, but it is not the one frozen in Lenin’s tomb.  He may even yet, impale....

“Respect the blob, learn from the blob, love the blob” -Robert Kagan, Brookings Institution, 2020

We are actually in our tenth year of CIA-State Department-Blob creation of our sponsored vassal state after they overthrew a democratically elected government in the Ukraine in 2014. But those are just the pesky details. The Russian meat grinder slowly does its thing, and 500,000 of Slavic descent lose their lives. That is the real purpose of the proxy war, keeping our hands clean and letting others do the dirty work while we virtue signal about the rules-based liberal international order, democracy and other empire-building platitudes.

This is more for those who are enlightened, anointed, even-the-belt-way types who are in a much higher tax bracket than you and me.

NATO IS losing this war anyway,  which is why shills in the corporate/state media aren’t talking about it. West Railroad just didn’t grok that memo. France’s local pretty boy Emmanuel Macron threatened to put boots on the ground recently huffing and puffing, being unfamiliar with Tolstoy’s two minutes hypersonic to Nuke Paris promise.  But our plot novel is written at least six months before our 2024 elections, where the latest casualty of war (always) was and is the truth.

So, if you ever wondered how we embarked on a foreign policy or lots of other policies (even domestic) that We, The, People, didn’t vote for, this is part of that globalist playbook.

Even the sclerotic, creepin’ Biden Administration’s growing policy concerns have gone wobbly when it ejects the State Department’s Victoria Nuland by slapping her corpulent, ‘foggy bottom’ right outta there! Now she REALLY is Robert Kagan’s problem! War in haste, repent in leisure.

So, what does our State Department genuinely have in mind for us? More Colonialism, possibly?

Actually, they are saying/ choreographing: “Come here to Storm Lake!”  Bring us your poor, dispossessed Chernobyls,  your 11 biological research facilities, chemical plants to be sited on Powell Creek, and all other comers to be free!  Perhaps an oil refinery in Little Newell? We will make a home for you! The mobbed-up Ukrainians can get a table in the back of Puff’s while Zelensky opens his dance club in South Beach. U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, otherwise known as “Mr. Monsanto,” can get Chuck Becker to pull another environmental hat trick if things go bad ‘round here. Plausible deniability is not just for the Biden family anymore.

The Ghostbusters sequel is entitled Frozen Empire. That’s us. Ice Age-Stone Age-Nuclear Age — it doesn’t matter much, does it?

And, there are no ‘happy endings,’ for taxman the impaler still cometh…

Wyatt Yon

Storm Lake

Iowa is not a good place if you have a disability

State Rep. Josh Turek’s excellent guest column in the Des Moines Register (Feb. 25, 2024) cited many reasons Iowa is not a good place to have a disability: long waiting lists for in-home and community-based care, severe restrictions on Medicaid eligibility, legislative efforts to dismantle services for special education provided by our Area Education Agencies, and more — yet this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Iowa also lags in the development of community services. Many states have closed their institutions for people with severe disabilities, but thousands of Iowans don’t have the opportunity to become part of the fabric of our society instead of living as segregated outcasts far from their families and communities. In December 2021, the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice found that Iowa “plans, administers, and funds its public health service system in a manner that unnecessarily segregates people with intellectual disabilities in the Resource Centers (Glenwood and Woodward), rather than providing these services where people live, in their community.”

In April 2022, Iowa Department of Health and Human Services Director Kelly Garcia announced that Glenwood Resource Center on the western edge of the state would close its doors. Garcia said, “This notion that you are admitted at age two and you live 80 years there is no longer the way we as a society would want to support a human being.”

Gov. Reynolds agreed, stating that “our best path forward to achieve [the standards of the U.S. Department of Justice] is closing Glenwood and reinvesting in a community-based care continuum that offers a broad array of services.”

Advocates for people who have disabilities applauded with hopes that Iowa would finally — after more than a century of neglect — protect the constitutional rights of its most vulnerable citizens and develop opportunities to live as independently as possible. Serving people close to home, where oversight is easier, decreases the chances of abuse, neglect and mistreatment documented by the DOJ. It would also save or redirect a good chunk of the nearly $400,000 in state and federal tax dollars spent annually per resident.

How’s it going, two years later?

A report issued in October 2023 by a state monitoring team found Glenwood to be out of compliance with 50 of 65 standards of medical care. It was out of compliance with 30 of 34 standards for transition into community settings. The deaths of residents while at the institution have not been adequately reviewed. Eight deaths of residents who died after transitioning have not been reviewed at all. Staff training on transitioning was found to be inadequate. In the last 15 months, 18 residents were moved to Woodward Resource Center — not a community-based provider. As is typical of the Reynolds Administration, little information is available to the public on whatever progress has been made toward the shuttering of Glenwood.

Rep. Turek wrote that Iowa is not a good place to have a disability. It is also not a good place to live if you care about government transparency, more efficient use of tax dollars, and equal citizenship for all Iowans.

David Leshtz

Iowa City

Choose the future of biofuels over special interests

By now, a lot of you have seen the new routes proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions. These developments are a result of Summit partnering with Valero and POET plants and further solidifying the necessity of carbon capture for biofuels.

At this point, a majority of ethanol producers have signed on to work with Summit. This shows that ethanol’s future is dependent on the ability to access carbon capture technology through CO2 pipelines.

I’ve served in multiple capacities in the biofuels industry since the RFS was passed by Congress in 2005, including president of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) in 2023, The Quad County Corn Processors board of directors, and represented the industry with state and federal government whenever and wherever I could. In the last 20+ years, I have seen what this industry can do for farmers and the rural communities where the plants are located.

Unfortunately, when we enjoy good times for so long — better corn prices and strong land values — us ag folks sometimes forget what times were like before biofuels. I haven’t forgot, which is why I can’t fathom a future without biofuels for the Midwest.

Certain groups who oppose common agriculture practices, ethanol and CO2 pipelines — namely the Sierra Club and the BOLD alliances — have either forgotten what life was like for farmers prior to biofuels, or they simply don’t care and it’s likely both.

All industries reach a point where they must adapt if they want to continue growing toward a prosperous future. Biofuels and agriculture are both at that point, which is why it is imperative the 50+ ethanol plants in Iowa can access carbon capture technology through Summit’s CO2 pipeline.

Choose the future of biofuels and agriculture over special interest groups who don’t care about rural America.

Al Giese

Milford