In today's charged political atmosphere, the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting can turn sharply partisan and accusatory rather quickly. It increasingly seems like both sides are talking past each other, and that no act of gun violence, no matter how horrific,...

Guest Post Bench Building Problem Democrats. The party of the young and idealistic. The party that looks toward the future and not the past. The party with policies to help the struggling 20 and 30-something’s get a job, buy a house, and start a family. The party...

Guest Post from Climate Reality Project Wednesday afternoon students, professors, and activists gathered in the Biorenewable Complex at ISU to kickoff Senator Hogg’s Climate Solutions Tour and open a discourse around the UN Climate Negotiations in Paris this...

Guest post by Sean Bagniewski I can still remember it. I was standing in line at the grocery store and got a call from my friend, Brenda Kole, who had been helping with Hillary Clinton’s exploratory committee. She asked if I remembered a film crew who had stopped...

After serving Cedar Rapids as a State Representative and a State Senator for 13 years, Senator Rob Hogg now sets his sights on the U.S. Senate seat up in 2016. “We badly need Congress to work again,” he explained as his motivation to run. “For our state, our...

Guest post by Kurt Meyer A year ago, I joined the Board of Directors of Americans for Democratic Action, a national organization committed to liberal politics, liberal policies, and a liberal future. The ADA, founded in the 1940s by an impressive coterie that...

Guest post by Jamie Fitzgerald While speaking recently at a neighborhood association meeting, I was asked why voters have to fill out a request for an early ballot for every election. The obvious response was – “That’s what the Code of Iowa requires us to have...

Guest post from Taylor Van De Krol He brings excitement. He brings energy. He understands the importance of retail politics in the first in the nation caucuses. His detail-oriented, goal-driven, and actions-over-words mentality gives me confidence that he is the...

What do Iowans care about this presidential election? Is it gun control? Immigration reform? Job creation? Climate change policies? Over the past few weeks, I’ve been keeping track of what Iowans ask at presidential candidate events, and making note of the party...

Though the Republican presidential candidate front-runner of three months is still maintaining his lead in the polls and pulling in the biggest crowds of any GOP’er, his sparkle has diminished. He’s essentially run out of bombastic, ridiculous things to say, aside...