Jordan True

Mar 20, 2024 | bleedingheartland.com | Scott Syroka |Nancy Dugan |Laura Belin |Jordan True

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member. It’s unclear whether Koch Industries would avoid paying utility replacement taxes worth millions of dollars every year if it acquires OCI Global’s Iowa Fertilizer Company plant in Wever (Lee County). According to Chuck Vandenberg’s February reporting for the Pen City Current, the Iowa Fertilizer Company plant’s current owner, OCI Global, paid between $2 to 3 million in utility replacement taxes in 2023 alone.

Mar 19, 2024 | bleedingheartland.com | Nancy Dugan |Laura Belin |Jordan True |C. A. Murch

Sample hog from which N. K. Fairbank & Co’s lard is made, via the Boston Public Library and Wikimedia CommonsThe Song of King Corn, by C. A. Murch (Verses 1 and 5)The dews of heaven,The rains that fall,The fatness of earth,I claim them all. O’er mountain and plainMy praises ring,O’er ocean and landI am King! I am King!Would you dethrone me? Not so, not so. Still the golden tideShall swell and flow;The earth yield riches,The toilers sing,In the golden landWhere Corn is King.

Mar 19, 2024 | bleedingheartland.com | Herb Strentz |Laura Belin |Jordan True |Gerald Ott

Images of Thomas Paine, Juvenal, and Trofim Lysenko all taken from Wikimedia Commons. Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000. This Bleeding Heartland post offers four perspectives on the dreadful Iowa legislature and on fears of the outcome of the November general elections.

Mar 18, 2024 | bleedingheartland.com | Laura Belin |Jordan True |Gerald Ott |Randy Evans

Iowa superintendents sound alarm about AEA changes Monday, Mar 18 2024 0 Comments Superintendents from more than 30 Iowa school districts warned state legislators on March 17 that major changes to Area Education Agencies (AEAs) “will have grave consequences for the students we serve.” In a message enclosed in full below and available here (pdf), the superintendents told lawmakers they “are deeply concerned about the proposed changes to the AEAs, especially the shift towards a...

Mar 17, 2024 | bleedingheartland.com | Laura Belin |Jordan True |Gerald Ott |Randy Evans

Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley (left) and Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver speak to members of the media on March 14 (photos by Laura Belin)If you didn’t know Iowa was in the eighth year of a Republican trifecta, you might be forgiven for thinking different parties controlled the state House and Senate after watching the past week’s action. Dozens of bills approved by one chamber failed to clear the legislature’s second “funnel” deadline on March 15.