Blogs

The Iowa caucuses are upon us. Hooray, whoopee, and two cheers.

The contests mark the official beginning of the 2016 presidential campaign, which already feels like it’s been going on for two years (because it has).

Some polls say that Donald Trump is going to be the Republican winner, others that Ted Cruz will be. Still others advise us to keep an eye on Marco Rubio, who’s sneaking up fast.

Is 2015 over yet? Is it safe to come out now?

What a bummer. Mass shootings, cops using unarmed civilians for target practice, the Middle East in rubble, terrorist attacks, Donald Trump.

Trump wasn’t the worst of it, perhaps. But he certainly was the most irritating.

It was a spectacle worthy of Tennyson — “Trump to the right of us, Trump to the left of us, Trump in front and behind. Into the valley of Trump rode the 300 million.”

Bettendorf's elected officials must be getting the message from constituents about the city's sky-high debt.

No, they haven't reined in their free-spending ways; the city just issued another $10.2 million in general obligation (GO) bonds.

But they have figured out how to make the city's debt appear smaller to voters, particularly prior to municipal elections.

It’s time — past time, really — to name the person of the year. (TIME Magazine does it. Why not me?)

There were many worthy candidates in 2015: the Pope, the Donald, and Luke Skywalker, to name just a few. But only one symbolized the spirit of the year.

I speak, of course, of Martin Shkreli.

Older men declare war, but it is the youth that must fight and die. - Herbert Hoover

The top tier of Republican presidential candidates trumpeted a march to war during last Tuesday's debate, a call that can only mean boots on the ground.

Those boots will be filled by younger Americans, the ones typically absent from Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses just seven weeks away.

Size matters to Donald Trump.

His wall along the Mexico border will be the biggest, a foot taller than the Great Wall of China, he told Quad-Citians last week.

His wealth dwarfs his opponents’ and their funders'.

When Paris suffered attacks that killed 17 last January — at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket — it responded with great class.

Parisians filled the streets, locked arm-in-arm in solidarity against terrorism. Leaders from throughout Europe (but not, alas, President Barack Obama) joined them in a show of support.

Before Bettendorf aldermen approve another round of taxpayer subsidies for downtown redevelopment, they should take a drive along 53rd Avenue and ask themselves: why are businesses paying top dollar to build along the busy corridor without a nickel from city coffers?

If asked, they will hear why commercial businesses flock to 53rd Avenue and avoid downtown Bettendorf: a location with easy access to residents with moderate to high disposal incomes.