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Grady’s attack on Worden was unfair

It was unfortunate that Mr Grady went ‘off on a tangent’ recently in an unfair attack on Mr. Worden as well as brazenly mis-representing a well-known & respected globally-printed newspaper. Perhaps Mr. Grady should have taken Mr. Worden’s invitation personally by coming into the library recently to view many sample issues of both The Epoch Times & The American Rifleman; he would have found none of the ‘evangelizing’ he so adamantly propagandized. Also, it is certainly worth noting that none of the five people who helped examine The Epoch Times early on mentioned anything about ...

Recent letter contained false information

A letter to me was published on Dec. 5 in the Times-Republican. I will not answer that letter because it contained false information without evidence that the writer received freedom of information correspondence between the Marshalltown Public Library and the State Library of Iowa. I don’t believe the writer John Worden ever demanded that correspondence and if it was demanded it was sought by Randy Evans who actually wrote the letter signed by John Worden. The day before John Worden on the telephone wanted to send that letter to me for my approval. I told Worden that I did not care ...

Randy Evans was not duped

Dear Mr. Lewis, Randy Evans, Columnist, and representative of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council chose to write his first of two articles in March after reading Marshalltown Public Library board meeting reports in this paper. As far as I know, no one asked him to write them and certainly didn’t dupe him. As the monthly meetings continued and policy was revised in April, it was obvious that the MPL board cared little for patron concerns. I suppose he read letters to the editor in which I pointed out excerpts from emails between the MPL director and State Library of Iowa ...

Dark money is the real issue

It was repugnant the description of caucus growers by professor Steve Corbin in his Nov. 24 article “2024 caucus primary and general elections controlled by extremists” and his omission of the true source of election corruption “Dark Money” exemplified by the Associated Press story “Nikki Haley Wins Backing From Powerful Koch Networks.” Professor Corbin generalized all caucus participants like my Democrat and Republican precinct held at Melbourne as “left-wing crazies and right-wing wackos.” I consider his analysis crazy and wacko! The Koch empire is rabidly ...

CO2 pipelines a terrible idea

The recent article submitted by the Des Moines Register stating the downside of CO2 pipelines was spot on. What a terrible idea! And an accident waiting to happen! Instead, we need more nature to take up CO2! What sense does it make to destroy what precious few remaining forests, prairies and wetlands to produce more (non green) ethanol — then make landowners put in these terrible things? Some people are even turning against farmers over this issue, which we should not do. Many farmers put in CRP and private woodland into permanent preserve (including yours truly) — tax free — a ...

Police reform is needed

Is there any other country in the world where police have been given so much “favored status” in their laws as they’ve been given here in Iowa? Our Republican lawmakers made police “immune from most lawsuits and 99 percent immune from prosecution.” Only the State AG can decide if police can be prosecuted. Is it any different in communist North Korea or in any tyrannical country? It should be that every violent police action must be tried before a jury of UN-screened common citizens. Some states passed “police reform,” but Iowa Trumpublicans went the very “opposite.” ...