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Not a good look

Last week I was reading more news about water only to come across another story which, in roundabout ways, is also about our state’s water quality. It was about the lawsuit filed against Farm Bureau Financial Services and several of their other subsidiaries. Former special investigators for Farm Bureau filed a lawsuit against Farm Bureau Financial Services, Farm Bureau Property & Casualty Insurance Co., FBL Financial Group, and several executives and attorneys. The lawsuit claims Farm Bureau officials “engaged in a scheme to defraud insurance policyholders, insurance and other ...

School owes explanation for this good-bye gift

While the text of the Iowa Constitution lacks the prominence of that adopted by our nation’s Founding Fathers, people from Ackley to Zwingle and points in between should track down a copy and give it a read. Buried away in the document adopted by Iowa voters in 1857, they will find Article III, Section 31, or what has come to be known as the public purpose requirement. That section says, in essence, that state and local governments are barred from spending public money unless there is a public purpose for those expenditures. My public-school education tells me that section ...

Thanksgiving Day, a day for unity in America

Thanksgiving Day took root in our nation’s history as a “day of public thanksgiving and prayer” when George Washington issued a proclamation in 1789, calling upon freshly minted Americans to celebrate ratification of the Constitution and coalesce around the bounty of hard-fought freedom. Having secured the right of self-governance, our nation’s first president recognized Americans needed to overcome internal divisions and regional differences to secure a lasting republic. And so, President Washington called for a civic celebration to unify Americans in the shared ...

Delivering for Iowa veterans, farmers and students

In Congress, I’m focused on cutting through the noise in Washington, D.C. and working to advance real policy solutions that benefit Iowa. That’s what Iowans elected me to do and deserve from their representatives. Putting Iowans first and delivering legislative victories for our families, ...

Marshalltown momentum

Marshalltown is closing out 2025 with significant momentum, fueled by visible construction projects, neighborhood reinvestment, and long-range planning efforts that are shaping the future of the community. From major infrastructure improvements to strategic internal initiatives, 2025 was a ...

How low can deviancy go?

The central scandal in the Epstein’s sex abuse ring targeting children is not the sex. It’s the children. What powerful men do with grown-up women — that is, females 18 or older — bothers me little. I never cared much about Donald Trump’s assignation with porn star Stormy Daniels. Other Trump critics tried to pile on another layer of immorality by noting that Trump was cheating on a wife who had just given birth. I wouldn’t go there. That was between Melania and Donald. One assumes that the third Mrs. Trump knew what she was getting into. I doubt I’m going on a limb to ...