It’s Friday, July 18, 2025.

🗣️ It’s Friday: A cool and less-humid end to the week—thank you!

My take: I have mixed feelings on pastors now being allowed to endorse political candidates from the pulpit (story from IPR, please donate to them now that they’ve lost federal funding!).

On the one hand, they shouldn’t get special treatment over other nonprofits. On the other, it’s an open secret they’re doing it anyway: The IRS admits it wasn’t enforcing these rules, churches already insert themselves into policy decisions like school vouchers, and several mega-church pastors were pretty obviously endorsing President Donald Trump. (Now we can make them pay property taxes, right?)

What do you think of this change? Reply and tell me.

🐶 This is Sierra at “Doggy school graduation!” says reader Kip N.

Congrats Sierra! But I need to know more about your classmate in the back….

Send me your pet photos here.

🌼 “A single blooming flower at The Mines of Spain, Dubuque, Iowa—July 4th, 2025,” says reader Julie H.

Send me your flower photos here.

A person pouring syrup on one of Morg’s iconic giant pancakes. (Photo courtesy of Travel Iowa)

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.

On the Big Beautiful Bill:

• “JD [Scholten] was among the few pointing out they passed a Farm Bill within the bill that keeps intact a rather broken system fueling concentration and not addressing monopoly issue.” ~Irene L.

• “I think we also need to hear about what ELSE is in this bill. I have heard that the most extreme parts do not take effect until after mid-terms. If this is correct, we need to hear about this political trick.” ~Cleve/Linda B.
  (NOTE: Several provisions, like adding a work requirement and more eligibility checks to Medicaid, making states share food stamp dollars, and eliminating some deferments on student loans, won’t kick in until 2026 or even 2028. CNN has a good timeline of when different provisions kick in here.)

• “I believe all legislators who voted for the largest cut to social safety net program for the sole purpose of further enriching the wealthy should be removed from office. There are no billionaires in my voting district; there are a few millionaires, but not enough to be a voting bloc. They have abdicated their duty to serve their constituents. With friends like these, who needs enemies?” ~Bridget M.

• “I have previously posted on my assessment of the reconciliation act’s effect on Iowa Medicaid. See this link. I am also aghast at the nutrition cuts. Farm state Republicans have forgotten that most nutrition aid was fashioned over time to soak up farm state surpluses and support farm prices. They have also forgotten that the ag lobby worked hard for decades to get most nutrition assistance under the umbrella of the Farm Bill to give urban legislators an incentive to support a bill with rural ag subsidies.

  Without nutrition programs, farm state Republicans have undone decades of political dealmaking done to benefit farmers and the ag processing and supply industries. I don’t know whether they are dumb or if they just don’t think anything will come back to haunt them anymore. 

   

  And I won’t even get into the fact that the bill gives a bigger budget to Trump’s personal secret police (ICE) than it does to the Marines. You can go ahead and put my full name on this. I am not as scared of the general public as ICE appears to be.” ~Mark Imerman

On the West Liberty young man detained by ICE:

• “I was at the ICE facility in Cedar Rapids today and asked for clarification about Pascual P-P’s status as a childhood arrival. … I’d say 100 people were there to protest his abduction. Right before the rally happened, another man had a required check-in and came out feeling and looking victorious. Yay! But they did not arrest him because they gave him 30 days to voluntarily self-deport. Cruel cruel cruel.” ~Shirley W.

• “We need to let the admin we are not standing for this! We cannot let people be stripped away from this country without any due process. Next it will be us.” ~Sue T.

On Iowa’s weird town names:

• “Thanks for the goofy town names! I would like to add a couple of towns that are in my neck of the woods down in Southeast Iowa:

  1. Montrose

       The locals call it ‘Mont Rose’

  2. Keokuk

       Down that way, they pronounce it ‘Kyo-cuck.’ The ‘kyo’ is one syllable, pronouncing the ‘y’ as a consonant as in ‘yes.’” ~Lucy G.

• “How could you do a story about mispronounced town names and not mention Maquoketa? (PS: I enjoy your Iowa news. Thank you)” ~Pamela H.

• “What about Charlotte? (Clinton County)” ~Keith/Mary T.
  
  (NOTE: According to the city’s website, it’s pronounced SHAR-lot. “Folklore attributes this to the times of the railroad, when the conductor would announce the arrival into town in this way,” the website says. Learned something new today!)

On the oldest towns in Iowa:

• “How could you not name Davenport? And Clinton? Iowa was settled from east to west and the river towns were the first. Please check your research more carefully.” ~Gaylen W., Iowa City
  (NOTE: You’re right about Davenport, and I’ll get that changed. However, Clinton wasn’t incorporated until 1857, so it’s a bit newer than the others on this list.)
  
  
• “DAVENPORT 1836” ~Mike W.
  (NOTE: Here’s that history.)

• “Thanks for the list of Iowa’s 10 oldest cities. I grew up in another state, so never learned this in school. I know a fair amount of the history in general, but this was special.” ~Clare L.

• “Loved the oldest cities. My mom grew up in Keosauqua. The Underground Railroad museum is there.” ~Lynn J.

Letter of the Week: Iowa isn’t ready for Big Bill impacts

“It will take some time for the impacts of the ‘BBB’ to be felt, and the real devil may well be in the details of how the federal agencies and states implement the broad direction contained the bill. But in addition to what [are the] much discussed anticipated impacts on Medicaid and SNAP affecting thousands of Iowans, and the additional funding for deporting individuals and families that have lived here for many years as contributing members of our society, and the horrendous additional debt that is even now causing foreign holders of US debt to be a bit nervous, the long-term impacts in other areas may prove to be the most significant.

Iowa has gone through a round of tax cutting, as have other states, and this may make it more difficult for them to handle the sudden additional costs of SNAP and Medicaid that has been passed down from the federal government. … The new sheer paperwork demands will increase the cost of administration of the programs significantly, while at the same time the states will need to shoulder more of the administrative costs. This may increase the number of both hungry people and those without medical insurance over and above what the direct cuts caused us to expect. … The impacts of both will be hardest felt in rural areas that already suffer from a lack of social resources and development, and could result in a further hollowing out of our rural areas.

Potentially the most serious harm will come from gutting the support for the development of renewable energy. … Iowa’s 60% renewably sourced power (principally wind and solar) shows what renewables can do. … The components and technology exist here and would get better with research and development, but incentives for current construction and funding for research and development have been outlawed by the BBB. This is a great gift to China which has been following a multi-year plan for acquiring the rare earth materials needed for computers, batteries and solar arrays. … The US likely will become a consumer of Chinese and European wind, solar, wind, and battery technology and products. It is conceivable that this could tip the scales to make China the world economic power.

There will be disappointment that the much-ballyhooed ‘no tax on tips’ or overtime turn out to be more window dressing than help, as only 3% of the workforce are in tipped occupations, and in many cases managers already manipulate schedules to preclude overtime. …

However, as there are 800-1000 pages to the bill, I have a great fear that all of the largely unaddressed provisions, like the cuts to energy development, have not been analyzed yet.” ~Glenn L., Davenport

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