Rick Smith

It’s less than two weeks until the election and Donald Trump has been searching for a new message. In an act of blatant racial opportunism, he targeted the Central American immigrant caravan traveling toward the United States. The videos of thousands of poor and desperate immigrants heading for the southern border provided the perfect victims…

Iowa’s national role as a leader in clean energy took a major hit thanks to a Republican-passed bill (SF 2311) in 2018. State Representative Gary Carlson spearheaded the effort, and Governor Reynolds signed it into law this past May. The bill cripples Iowa’s 28-year history of energy efficiency programs with massive cuts. It also allows…

You’ve probably heard the story of the frog in boiling water. If you drop a frog in boiling water he will jump out. But, if you place a frog in cool water and slowly bring it to a boil, by the time the frog realizes the danger he’s cooked. Most of the world (with the…

Iowa GOP Representatives Peter Cownie and Gary Carlson engineered passage of a drastic change to Iowa’s workers’ compensation law in 2017. Their major revisions make it much more difficult for injured workers to obtain benefits and severely restricts the total amount of benefits injured workers can receive. Progress Iowa, an Iowa worker advocacy group, has…

You can tell that Republican Congressmen Rod Blum and David Young are worried about their votes to kill healthcare reform. All three Iowa Republican Congressman – Blum, King and Young – voted for the Republican health care replacement plan, the American Health Care Act. The GOP plan would have eliminated protections of those with pre-existing…

Democrats are often criticized for lacking a clear, concise message. Gubernatorial candidate Fred Hubbell has overcome that critic by uniting Iowa Democrats by focusing on just a few key priorities. He has made health care reform, jobs and education funding the focus of his campaign. There are certainly a number of other issues that he…

Iowa’s amazingly successful development of wind power is facing significant threats from mushrooming local opposition. While the forces opposing wind power remain relatively small, they seem to be increasing in numbers. The reasons cited by these new anti-wind opponents range from simple aesthetics to health risks. Some are opposing new wind turbine construction by complaining…

It’s likely only Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford know if the sexual allegations about his behavior are true. Before we can evaluate the validity of Dr. Ford’s allegations (and other victims coming forward), we must all agree that her description is of an unacceptable physical sexual assault. Instead, Republicans are attempting to whitewash this alleged…

The Republican Party has been extremely effective in convincing their base that climate change isn’t real. By attacking basic scientific research, they have put facts and truth at risk. They have convinced their followers that science can’t be trusted because it is controlled by liberals and leftist research institutions. But the scientific community is being…