It’s Friday, Apr. 18, 2025.

🗣️ It’s Friday: Time for all of your hottest takes!

But first, here’s the Pet Photo of the Week:

This is Saul Alinsky, “our ‘tripod’ (3-legged) rescue,” says reader Lisa F.

Looks like he’s shocked you haven’t read his book yet.

Send me your pet photos here!

Readers are invited to add to the conversation by emailing responses@iowastartingline.com. Please include your first name and last initial. You may also want to include your city, but that’s up to you.

This week, we asked: Has your mortgage/rent gone up? What else is costing more these days?

• “Homeowners insurance went up, auto went up. I was so tired of mortgage rate fluctuation based on taxes and insurance, and the extra mortgage co hold back for variables, that I broke my taxes and insurance out of my mortgage when I refinanced during the massive rate drop. Property assessment going up. Gas going up, paid $2.54/gallon in Dec. Paid $2.84 last week. 401K down. Fresh foods up.” ~Bridget M.

• “Mortgage is paid off, but insurance rates have sure gone up.” ~Clare S.

• “Increase in car insurance.” ~Marvin D., Coralville
  

Next week’s question:

What’s causing our growing cancer rate, and/or what should our elected officials be doing about it? Click the button below and email me.

More comments on Reynolds not running for reelection:

• “GREAT comment, Jay S.” ~Don M.
• “Reynolds, I suspect, was on her phone DAILY to Family Leader getting her instructions. School vouchers were just part of their ‘dirty work’ in which she indulged. Once she’s gone, they will be back in the news on a daily basis like they were before she took over.” ~Edwin H.

• “Wonderful news unless we end up with someone worse as her successor … She also is afraid of diversity, equity, and inclusion: a policy heartily embraced by lots of private corporations, non-profits and of course the universities which have been denied the opportunity to even teach about the past history and lack of these important issues.” ~Clare S.

• “I am very concerned as to whether or not the Democratic Party can get it together to run a decent campaign so that we can get a Democrat in the governor’s office. First thing that came to mind for me was Rob Sand and I have found dozens of people who said the exact same thing. Let’s get it together Iowa and present a great gubernatorial candidate and turn this state blue again.” ~Marilee T.

• “She and her supporters have done a lot of damage to Iowa. I hope Iowa can get back on track and become the bipartisan problem-solving state it used to be. If the current trend continues, there will be no healthcare providers or educators left. Nobody wants to live in a state that is unwelcoming, threatening and dictates how they do their job.” ~Sherrie K.

Not all farmers:

• “A question re: the comment about Iowa’s farmers staying committed to Trump. I am curious a) who we are talking about when we talk about farmers and b) how many of those people actually exist. I come from a farm town and yes, farmers have a lot of the wealth there, but it’s not like they make up a majority of voters (or even a sizeable portion). Especially as out of state/country corporations continue to buy up more and more of our land and farmers’ kids are not choosing to stay in the profession (or even the state). What is their actual influence? When are we talking about farmers and when are we talking about big farm monopolies? The narrative just doesn’t seem to shake out for me, but maybe I’m missing something.” ~Kara T.

  (NOTE: You have a good point that we can more accurately say “rural voters” rather than farmers these days. This map from Investigate Midwest shows the nation’s “farming dependent” (rural) counties, of which Iowa has several, and how they voted in November. All of the Iowa ones went for Trump, most of them overwhelmingly. Whether those rural voters stick by him in the days of whiplash tariffs and ensuing price hikes is the million-dollar question.)

Are you worried about DOGE taking personal information from the NLRB?

• “Yes! Very worried about information about all of us being shared! Thanks for all you do!!“ ~Marilyn D., Cedar Rapids

• “Yes, he has no business doing this!!” ~Steve N.

• “I’m worked about ALL the data DOGE is collecting, not just the stuff on unions.” ~Clare S.

• “Of course I am! Even though I retired 15 years ago … Current workers and retirees need to be vigilant for any changes proposed by management, legislators and especially outside influencers. They most certainly are not looking out for your best interests, but theirs. Be wary!” ~Steve C.

   

• “I question your concerns over Elon Musk and President Trump investigating possible fraud in receiving our tax money? Why are these investigations so troubling to you, the fact there has been incredible sums of money funneled into these fraudulent recipients doesn’t seem to trouble you in the least? I have seen no concern expressed by your organization over the fraud, not only by those receiving the money, but the government departments sending these vast sums of money to them?

   

  I don’t consider myself to be partisan, I vote for the Party that I believe will do the best job representing its constituents. However, I believe all the people responsible for this misuse of tax payer money need to be punished, irregardless of which Party is responsible. And there could very well be participants in both Party that [are] guilty.

   

  But, until all the facts are known, I find it troubling you are so biased against the people who are trying to get to the bottom of all this fraud.” ~Mike L., Muscatine

  (NOTE: Well, it’s the “burning down the house to kill the spider” tactics for me! Besides the fact that, no, DOGE has not actually been finding nearly as much fraud as Musk claimed he would—many of his claims, like unemployment fraud, turn out to be things like protecting victims from identity theft—what’s more troubling is that DOGE’s slash-and-burn tactics could be enabling more fraud to occur: Whistleblowers inside these departments say DOGE is taking troves of personal data that would be valuable to private businesses, not to mention carelessly slashing a workforce that could now have incentive to sell our secrets to foreign enemies.)

On Trump taking away automatic dues collection from federal unions:

• “Please do not allow him to do that. That is so wrong. Nobody should dictate what the union gets and pays, or anybody else as far as that goes. Thank you, please stop that.” ~Rena R.

Christian stickers at the library:

• “I will start by saying I am a Christian, although I have as many concerns about most of today’s Christians as I do about the MAGA cult still clinging to Trump.

  I visited the Indianola Public Library today and looked at the ‘new fiction’ selection and noticed a book with a sticker with a cross and ‘Christian’ on it. I’m wondering how and why these are finding their way on books in our public library. I looked superficially on several shelves and saw nothing of any other religion. The only other sticker located on books I saw simply said ‘Holiday.’

  I was totally unaware of these stickers and have no idea how long they have been used. Anyway, I don’t like it and wondered if you would research it or just fill me in on the history and justification. I interpret it as further erosion of the separation of church and state.” ~Tony T.

  (NOTE: I asked library director Michele Patrick. Here’s her response: “Those are findability stickers designed to provide a visual cue to connect readers to popular subgenres. In addition to Christian Fiction (which is a specific subgenre of fiction), other findability stickers in the fiction collection include Holiday, Newberry Award Winners, Romance, Westerns, and Mysteries. We just added a Local Author sticker to help connect readers to Warren County authors. We also use stickers to denote Travel, Large Print, Graphic Novels, Manga, Early Readers, Juvenile Paperbacks, Juvenile Nonfiction Paperback, Teen, and Playaways.”)

Reynolds’ economic record:

• “There are lots of ways to evaluate economic performance. Politicians know them all. There is always something that makes a person look brilliant. … I generally start with real (inflation adjusted) growth in gross domestic product, and I like to compare it with a general benchmark. If I am evaluating an administration, I think it is a good thing to include the whole period. With all the data, you can evaluate events that cause fluctuations without imposing the editorial bias of arbitrary start and finish points.

  Here are two such graphs for Iowa during the Kim Reynolds years (2017 to the present). Both are benchmarked to United States totals. The first shows year-over-year growth over the period. The second shows cumulative growth over the period.

  I will let the pictures speak for themselves.” ~Mark I., Des Moines

Letter of the Week:

How best to counter the right?

• “I am writing to humbly ask your thoughts and/or advice re a question of the utmost importance that I have been wrestling with for months.

   

  Given the current ugliness in this country—and, frankly, throughout much of Europe, too—I have been searching for the kind of core idea or set of principles around which we could rally and challenge the fundamental conceits and arguments of the far Right, who have clearly bought into and are enamored by not only toxic forms of so-called ‘masculinity’ but also the ‘might makes right ‘and obeisance to the ‘laws of the marketplace’ that have long been the arguments embraced for those who believe it only right that the ‘best and brightest’—as demonstrated both by their bank accounts and ability to squeeze ever more out of the rest of us.

   

  Given my age, Irish-Catholic upbringing, and social justice training as a young man, my ‘fall back’ has been the quite different set of priorities derived by millennia of  Judaeo-Christian teachings in which the welfare of human beings should underlie every form of speech and action. An economic/political/social system designed along such principles would be a day/night difference to the so-called ‘values’ of our ruling elite today.

   

  However, given how so many religious leaders of these ancient traditions have betrayed us by remaining silent and/or on the sidelines in recent decades, apparently content with the way things are going, and also given that large numbers of young people—recognizing the emptiness of such leaders’ ‘religion’—have abandoned not only Christianity [but] institutionalized ‘religion’ in all its forms—what can we today use to advance an alternative framework that would both powerfully challenge the foundations of today’s evil structures as well as create the kind of convincing and compelling framework argument for an alternative future?

   

  If you have any ideas, suggestions, or even ‘fragments’ of an answer, I would appreciate hearing from you.” ~Greg C.

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