It saddens me to write this, yet the undeclared Iran War is heading to be the worst defeat in American history. While Iran’s tenacity in times of conflict is well known, the current administration appeared ignorant of their resilience as it initiated war without the consent of the Congress. Our country expended a boatload of missiles—depleting half or more of key stockpiles—in the first two months of the war.
According to the Center for Strategic Studies, the military used these critical munitions:
Patriot Air Defense Interceptors: Nearly 50% of the total pre-war inventory was expended within the first few weeks.
Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM): At least 45% of the stockpile was consumed.
THAAD Interceptors: Between 50% and 80% (up to 290) of the THAAD inventory was used, creating severe near-term shortages.
Tomahawk Cruise Missiles: The U.S. used over 1,000 Tomahawks, which accounts for roughly 30% to 50% of the total available U.S. arsenal.
SM-3 Interceptors: Nearly half of the inventory was expended during the campaign.
JASSM & ATACMS: More than 20% of the long-range JASSMs, as well as approximately 1,000 ATACMS and other ground-based missiles, were used.
What did we get for that? Closure of the Strait of Hormuz, destruction at our regional military bases, and little else. Joe Cirincione described the president’s position, “Simply put, Trump is out of cards to play.”
This week, the president was on a state visit to China. He is damaged goods. Cirincione presents the analysis of David Rothkopf as follows:
Trump has so damaged the core U.S. relationships with countries worldwide that he is seen more as a pariah than any American leader ever. Certainly, as an enemy of democracy and supporter of strong men worldwide, Trump can no longer claim, as past U.S. presidents did, to be the “leader of the free world.”
Indeed, in many ways, this trip will mark the end of the idea that America’s president is the world’s most powerful person.
Where do we go from here? That’s an open question, however, I never want to hear the words “American Exceptionalism” again.
Early voting for the June 2, 2026 primary election began on Wednesday, May 13. I voted early because I am working on election day. Early voting feels almost like a non-event this year compared to the role it played in the Obama presidential campaigns of 2008 and 2012. Republican opposition to President Obama emerged quickly. He did win Iowa both years.
Fueled by investments by wealthy conservative and libertarian donors, along with authentic grassroots opposition to President Obama and the Affordable Care Act, a conservative backlash movement grew in the first year of Obama’s presidency. It included spontaneous local protests soon after Obama was sworn in, the April 15, 2009, Tax Day TEA Parties, and confrontations at congressional town hall meetings over the Affordable Care Act. This conservative movement energized Republican volunteers in the 2010 midterm elections.
2010 was a turning point in U.S. political history in which Obama faced serious resistance. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was the most significant reform of U.S. health care since Lyndon Johnson signed legislation to create Medicaid and Medicare in 1965. It passed the Congress without a single Republican vote.
In the Republican resurgence in the 2010 midterm elections, they gained 63 seats in the U.S. House, made Rep. John Boehner Speaker, and gained six U.S. Senate seats. Democrats maintained control of the Senate yet had lost their filibuster-proof majority. In addition, Republicans made major gains in governorships and state legislatures. This positioned them to shape post-census redistricting in ways that strengthened their electoral position. The political polarization of 2010 endures today.
After the 2010 election, many Republican-led states enacted voter ID laws, reduced early voting periods, tightened absentee rules, and altered registration requirements. It is worth revisiting the election-law changes Iowa Republicans made after gaining unified control of state government in 2017.
In 2008 and 2012, Democratic organizations—the Obama campaign specifically—used early voting laws as a key part of their get out the vote efforts. They were successful. Republicans clearly noticed and moved to change voting law as soon as they gained control in Iowa.
The first election law change after Iowa Republicans won the trifecta in 2016 was House File 516 which reduced the early voting period from 40 to 29 days. They followed with another in 2021, Senate File 413, which further reduced the early voting period to 20 days. That leaves Iowa with an early voting period that is workable, but considerably less expansive than it once was. I believe this was part of the Republican intention.
Republican legislators made other changes to voting rules and processes. In 2017, HF 516 established Iowa’s voter ID requirements, required signature verification for some absentee ballots, changed absentee-ballot request procedures, and expanded procedures intended to prevent duplicate or ineligible voting. In 2021, the list of changes was longer:
Polls closing at 8 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. on Election Day.
Shorter deadlines for requesting and returning absentee ballots.
Requiring most absentee ballots to arrive by Election Day, rather than allowing some postmarked ballots to arrive later.
Restricting county auditors from mailing absentee-ballot request forms unless voters specifically requested them.
Limiting counties to one ballot drop box location.
Tightening rules on who could return another voter’s absentee ballot.
Requiring petitions for additional satellite voting locations.
Expanding procedures for moving inactive voters off registration rolls.
Increasing state oversight and potential penalties for local election officials.
A primary election is not the best time to evaluate how Democratic organizations manage early voting. Because there are high-profile Democratic primaries for the open U.S. Senate seat, in some congressional races, and in supervisor races, each campaign does their own thing regarding early voter turnout. The effort gets reduced in language to some form of “vote on or before June 2,” rather than any obvious canvassing to harvest early ballots. The new laws prohibit intermediaries from collecting completed absentee ballots.
That I characterized early voting as a “non-event,” indicates the routine nature the process has become. However, it is important to remember how we got here if Democrats want to make it easier to vote going forward.
Every gardener should read The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild by Thomas D. Seeley. Gardeners are aware of the mix of pollinators required to service our plants and make food growing possible. We tend to forget this key insect, Apis mellifera, has been present on Earth for from six to eight million years. Before there was agriculture, there were common honey bees. Understanding wild bees and how they interact in the wild is useful and relevant knowledge.
The book is comprehensive, and based on the author’s research as well as that of others. There is a lot about bees I hadn’t considered before.
Wild honey bees position their hives a good distance from each other, a half mile apart on average. This serves multiple aspects of bee life—defensive purposes and limiting the spread of parasites such as the Varroa destructor and contagious viruses between colonies.
Likewise, bees have evolved to prefer a hive entry in a hollowed out tree around 15 feet above the ground. The small entry usually leads to the lower third of the cavity. If we want to find a wild honey bee nest in a tree, we must look up. This positioning is likely an evolutionary aspect of hive location. Curiously, black bears—a main bee hive predator—have eyesight that can’t see bees flying in and out of an opening that far up a tree, according to Seeley.
As humans domesticated bees in apiaries, they did what makes sense for beeswax and honey production—built larger hives for their swarms of bees. According to Seeley, wild honey bees strongly prefer tree cavities with a volume of about 10 to 12 gallons. In addition to size, the tree cavity provides insulation from cold weather. Contrast that with commercial apiaries whose average size is 20 gallons, nearly twice the ideal size. Seeley found less tendency for apiary bees to swarm in larger hives. The result has been allowing mites like the Varroa destructor to propagate better. In a section called Darwinian Beekeeping, he detailed his process. Commercial bee keeping removed a natural defense built up among bee colonies over thousands of years of evolution.
The physical book was made using a heavier paper than most mass market books. In fact, it was a bit much to read in bed because my hands got tired of holding its weight. The photography and illustrations make the premium paper worth the workout of holding and reading it. There is more than just the physical object. If you have ever wondered about bees, this is a comprehensive and readable reference. Highly recommend.
After spading the next garden plot on Sunday, I went to the home, farm, and auto supply store to get fence posts. It was a madhouse around 12:30 p.m. with families out and stocking up on all kinds of home items. The person ahead of me at the cashier tallied up more than $500 worth of merchandise. Outside in the parking lot, the garden center was set up and like me, people were buying things to use in the garden. I was home alone, so didn’t mind being with people, even if I didn’t know anyone by name.
On the way down, I drove past Walmart and Lowe’s, which both likely carry the fence posts I needed. I would rather shop where I knew one of the principals while I worked there. I held a “retirement job” to earn enough money to fill budget gaps until reaching full retirement age. The job ended during the coronavirus pandemic when I decided the risk was not worth the reward. One of the owners stopped to see me every time he was in town, and sent birthday and holiday cards with a personal note. Big box stores don’t offer that sort of amenity.
It was Mothers’ Day. As I looked for the fence posts I saw several mother-daughter couples filling carts. The reason I felt they were mother-daughters is because of their similar faces combined with an appropriate age difference. Thoughts turned to my own mother.
My last memory of her was walking her casket from the hearse to the grave site next to Father. The ground was uneven and my grip was unsure. I almost tripped and the casket lowered unevenly with the other pall bearers, shifting Mother inside. She was never big on celebrating Mothers’ Day, although I miss being able to pick up the phone and call her.
They didn’t have the size fence posts I needed at the home, farm, and auto supply store. I bought five three-foot ones for tomato cages, but will have to get the four- and five-foot ones elsewhere.
As I headed home across the lakes I felt the garden workday was at an end. Tomorrow looked like another beautiful spring day for progress. Earlier in the day, I wished my spouse a Happy Mothers’ Day and she replied our child sent her a nice note. This trip was about more than garden supplies.
The terms “data center,” “energy,” and “artificial intelligence” get bandied about in the media. It would be good to have a better understanding of what these things mean in the context of the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. Hannah Ritchie sorts through some of this in an article titled, “How much electricity does AI consume?” Read it here.
From what I understand, “data center” does not mean a single thing. For example, when Google signed a long-term contract with NextEra Energy to buy most of the electricity generated from a refurbished nuclear power plant in Palo, Iowa it had specific intentions for use. In multiple public statements it indicated the electricity was to support cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure. Where exactly the electricity would be used has not been specified, nor is the contract tied to any specific future facility. Likewise, before Duane Arnold Energy Center comes on line in 2029, plans for usage could change.
If one uses artificial intelligence at home, it seems obvious AI is an industry in transition. I have been using various AI tools for about a year, and from a user perspective, the interface and results change often, in some cases daily. By 2029, there could be dramatic changes in both cloud and artificial intelligence process and usage. To use the Google example, what Google thinks it will use this contracted electricity today, may not be what they use it for in 2029 and beyond.
It is often missed that electricity and energy do not mean the same thing. The former is a subset of the latter. For example, when I worked as a consultant in Kentucky, the steel mill which was our customer had predicated its business on the availability of low electricity prices at night to melt scrap metal for their rolling mill. I have experience with a number of corporations that used energy to heat and dry products, forge steel and aluminum, and other industrial uses. That doesn’t mention home heating, automotive, and aviation uses of energy. When we discuss data centers, in terms of energy use, we are speaking of electricity.
A friend’s son works for a major multinational corporation and is working on development of artificial intelligence to support their manufacturing and sales operations. It is a major project involving travel to many countries where the company has a footprint. I expect most large companies are doing similarly. The results of these exploratory efforts will change how they do business, including the fear that AI will replace human workers in large numbers. There are fears and there are actualities and unfortunately we don’t know the latter today.
My point is when talking about data centers, energy and artificial intelligence we must do better than to bandy about terms for which there are better definitions. We should not avoid that discussion but participate actively in it when possible. Doing so meaningfully means knowing about what we bring up. In the case of AI we are discussing electricity.
When Governor Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 75 into law on April 11, 2025, the legislative fight gave way to an organized implementation that changed the politics of affected counties. The law requires Johnson, Story, and Black Hawk counties—those with public universities—to shift from at-large to district-based elections for county supervisors, with changes taking effect during the 2026 election cycle. The change is getting real.
Iowa City attorney Jim Larew filed a lawsuit to request a temporary injunction to stop the law. When a district court judge denied the request, the counties got to work implementing the changes as best they could. I live in Johnson County, and some things stand out:
None of the counties refused to implement the law.
Each county used the Legislative Services Agency to draw district maps.
Every supervisor seat is on the ballot in 2026, including supervisors elected two years ago to a four-year term.
There are plenty of candidates for supervisor, especially in Johnson County where there are 14 candidates for 5 supervisor positions.
The highest profile race in Johnson County is between incumbents Rod Sullivan and V Fixmer-Oraiz in District 4. Sullivan is a long-serving progressive supervisor, while Fixmer-Oraiz represents a newer progressive challenge. That race has generated substantial local activism. Neither of them would have had this kind of campaign in the at-large system.
The increase in Johnson County candidate filings is noteworthy. With so many candidates, there is a sense county politics will change dramatically under the district system. That is the hope of candidates like Republican Phil Hemingway, running for county supervisor in his sixth campaign, this time in District 2. According to the May 7, Solon Economist:
Hemingway referred to SF 75 as an opportunity for small towns, like Solon, to not feel overshadowed by Iowa City’s political composition. Rural residents, who are smaller in number, feel diluted by surrounding urban interests. Solon, he said, has a very different political alignment than Iowa City.
I don’t think Hemingway (or the Solon Economist) did the election math. In District 2, where Solon lies, there is a mix of regions: rural, small city, a substantial number of Iowa City proper precincts. There is also the large Newport precinct that behaves like an Iowa City precinct. This doesn’t fit the talking point Republicans who favored Senate File 75 assert—better representation for small cities and rural residents. Based on where Democratic votes are located, the Iowa City precincts in District 2, along with Newport, have enough to determine the general election outcome despite Republican leaning precincts like Lone Tree, Solon, and Big Grove. Regardless of the winner of the three-way District 2 Democratic primary, Hemingway should plan to lose again.
District 2 is the crux of a new politics. The Republican meme about rural voters electing one of their own gives way to the reality that candidates will have to build credibility across an electorate that includes incompatible priorities. The new politics is about building coalitions.
Rural voters may feel frustrated if they expected Senate File 75 to create distinctly rural districts and instead find themselves still electorally tied to Iowa City voters. The biggest question is whether the district system diluted or preserved Iowa City’s influence. This stands out in District 2.
It seems obvious, but voters inside a district won’t vote as a monolith. The coalition a successful supervisor candidate will have to build includes university-affiliated progressives, older liberal homeowners, renters focused on affordability, labor-oriented Democrats, environmental activists, senior citizens, farmers, rural residents, families with school aged children, and more. My point is any candidate who treats “Iowa City” or “rural residents” or “small city folk” as a monolith has signed their candidacy’s death warrant. A successful candidate has to connect rural land use, watershed protection, food systems, road funding, housing growth, affordable housing, and taxes with the same needle and thread.
The better question for candidates is how do they build a coalition that actually decides turnout? The answer is far more nuanced than the original legislative debate over Senate File 75 suggested. Things are getting real as early voting starts at the Johnson County Auditor’s office on May 13.
When the legislature adjourned sine die at 7:08 p.m. last Sunday, the governor responded with a press release hitting my inbox at 7:12 p.m., proclaiming the 2026 session was a success. Long story short, “Republicans are delivering big for Iowans,” Governor Reynolds asserted in a statement. If you believe that, stand on your head.
Republican governance has been so bad, they even passed a law to hobble Reynolds’ replacement, assuming it will be Democrat Rob Sand. They tried this before with Sand as auditor and with Attorney General Tom Miller. The efficacy of this move is wearing thin.
Water quality is such a compelling issue in Chris Jones’ campaign for Secretary of Agriculture, Republicans passed a do-nothing water quality bill in the last week of session. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Republicans are on the run.
For now, the rhythm of Iowa politics shifts, trading the urgency and headlines of floor debate for something quieter but consequential. The June 2 primaries are upon us. The relative quiet of this coming month is not inactivity so much as a change in where and how politics happens.
Campaigns are no longer ramping up—they are knuckling down. Instead of large, highly publicized events, they focus on smaller gatherings: county meetings, fundraisers, informal meet-and-greets. Messaging becomes more targeted. Endorsements, local networks, and turnout operations take priority over broad visibility. Much of the real work happens in conversations rather than speeches—in living rooms, community events, and local party circles. Organizing for the election becomes more granular.
In the Republican primary, all eyes are on the governor’s race to see if any of four other candidates can beat Randy Feenstra. All five are serious candidates as far as that is possible for a Republican, far to the right of average Iowans. Rob Sand’s clear path to the general election put’s him in a better position with each passing week as Republicans jockey for position and votes.
I wrote about the Democratic primary races here. The most interesting of those are the county supervisor races under the new system Republicans put in place in three counties with a regents university. My sense is that regardless of what the current Johnson County board of supervisors has done recently, the election is a jump ball, not governed by logic or reasoning, but a desire for something new. From where I sit, the electorate is preoccupied with other things, such as making financial ends meet under Republican governance.
It is not too late to get involved with a primary campaign in a race important to you. My advice is don’t let the quiet lull you into inaction. Too much is at stake in November and the race to the general begins in earnest on June 2.
Once or twice a year, my spouse visits her sister in Des Moines. That means, at least in part, I have the house to myself for a week or so, and can cook how I want—more meals that include capsaicin in its varied forms. During these times, I seek to better bind my activities with intent, simplify them, and break existing habits by changing the daily, physical markers that prompt them. If possible, I would re-invent my regimen. That may be a lot for a week.
A primary consideration is that while home alone, everything has new rules. Rules regarding noise, kitchen activities, and access to the washer and dryer. We get along on these topics most of the time, yet I cut loose during the absences: I got caught up on laundry by day two! I made a spicy version of rice and greens! This time there is more intent on my part during our period of separation.
The house is quiet when I wake, so I can walk to the kitchen for a drink of water in my underwear. I’ve been able to move my morning reading to the living room when during normal conditions, she is using it. I frequently wonder what she is doing, then recall she is not here. It is another aspect of breaking set habits. It is surprising how much depends upon her physical presence.
On what was a “normal day,” everything was structured around productivity blocks and task completion. During this retreat, I don’t want a lighter version of that. A different process is at work with fewer work switches, fewer obligations, and more sustained, intentional engagement with one thing at a time. Less planning and more doing. I break loose from the compartments of reading, chores, errands, food prep and writing that occupied my active mind.
Food is a large part of a retreat. Two days after she was gone, I decided to have a two-day fast during which I limited caloric intake, and structured meals so there are more fruits and vegetables in the morning along with two main meals at lunch and dinner. The idea was to stick with the caloric limits, the hope being to help my body with digestion and maintenance.
During a retreat things naturally settle into a pattern. I resist that. I wake early, read in the living room, exercise, then spend long uninterrupted stretches in the garden. By afternoon my clothes are stained with with soil and sweat. The rhythm of digging, planting, and weeding replaces the compartmentalized routines that usually govern the day. Tasks that once felt separate — cooking, watering, reading, laundry, writing — begin to fold into one another.
Habits become visible when I am alone. When the dishes are done before bedtime, I see the empty sinks in the morning and feel ready to fill them again. Unawares, I notice how often I expect to hear another person moving through the house, or delay entering a room because I assume it is occupied. It reveals how much of ordinary life is built from quiet interactions and repeated physical cues rather than conscious decisions.
By the end of the week, I doubt I will have reinvented myself. I will be thankful for the brief chance to examine my life while habits loosened. Retreat enables me to eat differently, work differently, move differently through the house, and remember that habits are not permanent fixtures so much as paths worn into the carpet by repetition. Some days I want to vacuum it all up and start over.
When I fill in for Trish or Dave on Blog for Iowa I post about what I am reading. In part, I do so to share books I felt were worthwhile. In part to encourage people to read actual books in any format. The sad state of American reading is hard to ignore. 40 percent of Americans read no books in the last year, with a majority reading four or fewer, according to recent statistics. If you only read four this year, here are some recommendations.
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Each spring I re-read one of my favorites. It has been 50 years since I first opened Slaughterhouse-Five at university, the same university Vonnegut taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He famously wrote this book at 800 North Van Buren St. in Iowa City and was a presence throughout downtown when he was here. I wrote about this in 2021. I appreciate the cameo appearance of a local Sears and Roebuck warehouse in the book. The story itself holds up well and its unique narrative is constantly engaging. In a time when fiction seems formulaic, Vonnegut is a refresher in what it means to be alive.
Sarah Smarsh’s strongest work to date is in Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class. Her first book, Heartland, was a sensation; her second, She Come By It Naturally, fell flat for me. Smarsh’s strengths are well suited to the type of short essays in Bone of the Bone. It left me wanting to read more. I reviewed it here.
Hannah Ritchie is the kind of data head I would like to be and her new book, Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answersis part of the reason. In it, she explains aspects of solving the climate crisis using data to back up her statements. This one is worth reading. I reviewed it here.
People don’t know about Lance M. Foster’s The Indians of Iowa and I seek to remedy that. Foster studied anthropology and holds an advanced degree from Iowa State University. The University of Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist wrote a tribute to him on the occasion of his 2025 death. Find it here. We so often trace Iowa’s lineage to the Black Hawk War in 1832, but Foster takes it deeper in simple, straight-forward language. There is a bibliography, tour guide, and notes for further reading. It is an entry point into native culture in Iowa.
So there are four books to read this year. Please drop a comment and share what you are reading this spring.
President Lyndon B. Johnson addressing a crowd during campaign rally in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on Sept. 28, 1964. Photograph by Cecil W. Stoughton, Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas.
The saturated news coverage of Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Louisiana vs. Callais makes it difficult to say anything useful about its impact. Simply put, this is about Chief Justice John Roberts’ long-time goal—four decades in the making—to gut the Voting Rights Act.
In 2016, I asked, “Who is a progressive? Who is a ‘real’ progressive? Who will continue a progressive legacy?” I answered, “You are not a progressive unless you have read Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Iowa’s own Ari Berman.” Little has changed in 10 years. Here is an excerpt from my 2016 review:
In this extensively researched, easy to read text, Berman reminds many of us of the reason we became politically active: as a way of engaging in progress toward racial and social justice centered around the Voting Rights Act (VRA) signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on Aug. 6, 1965.
There has been a concerted, well-planned effort to suppress provisions of the VRA. The June 25, 2013 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Section 4, which required certain states to get pre-clearance of changes to voting laws from the Department of Justice, was only the most obvious, recent incident. Berman’s account of the Nixon and Reagan administrations provides insight that de-fanging the law was part of Republican intent from the beginning. My reaction was incredulity at everything that was happening before my eyes without me understanding it.
Ari Berman, in Give Us the Ballot, traces Chief Justice Roberts’ involvement with voting rights issues back to his Reagan-era opposition to strengthening the Voting Rights Act in 1982, arguing that his later Supreme Court opinions reflect a consistent skepticism toward key provisions of the law.
Learn the history by reading Berman’s book. Be a progressive by working for the changes we need in our government to restore the Voting Rights Act and protect everyone’s right to vote.
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