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The Barker Bulletin: Special session

Last Friday, I returned to Des Moines with my colleagues in the Iowa Legislature for a special session focused on an extraordinary economic development opportunity for our state. President Trump recently announced that Mesabi Metallics plans to build a new steel mill in Iowa. The proposed $15 ...

The attendance snowball: When a few absences become a pattern

If a student missed nearly a full month of school all at once, any parent or teacher would immediately sound the alarm. Yet when school absences are scattered quietly throughout the year, it may not trigger concern. But, what starts as a few absences here and there can quickly snowball into a ...

If Hegseth wants to strip the military of weirdos, he should resign

Where did this guy come from? How did a TV personality end up leading America's defense department, especially in a time of war? Donald Trump put Pete Hegseth in charge of the Department of Defense. It's now officially called the War Department, but I'm not ready to go there. In one of ...

Christa Pike and the incomplete justice of death

Why do we kill? It's a question unlikely to ever be answered to any degree of satisfaction, but one I found myself asking the other day after hearing about the botched execution of convicted murderer Christa Pike. In reading about the story, I learned that Pike and I are almost the same ...

President Trump deserves credit

Iran's strategy in this war was never complicated. The mullahs believed that if they choked the Strait of Hormuz long enough, Americans would feel it at the gas pump and Washington would lose its nerve before the midterms. Brent crude spiked past $107 a barrel this month, and Iranian-aligned ...

Don’t let FlyDubai terror scare derail Abraham Accords progress

Terrorists want nothing more than to prevent peace. It's why they fly planes into buildings, don explosive vests, and rain indiscriminate missiles on civilian populations. The response to such terrorism isn't to cower. It is to lead with boldness, courage and, sometimes, outright ...