The following email was sent to my federal elected officials, Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley, and Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026.
I must be blunt. If you don’t know that what the administration did in Venezuela over last weekend is wrong, there is little hope for you.
I have taken time to understand administration arguments supporting what they called Operation Absolute Resolve. In particular, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “It was a law enforcement function to arrest indicted individuals in Venezuela.” Everyone who believes law enforcement was the sole purpose of the operation should stand on their heads.
President Trump’s actions in Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea are an extension of a long U.S. tradition of interference in the region. While in 1934, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced the “Good Neighbor Policy,” pledging not to invade or occupy Latin American countries or interfere in their internal affairs, the region has been rife with covert U.S. operations to overthrow left-wing elected officials. Trump is not unique in this regard.
The public, announced plans from President Trump have been about much more than arresting Nicolás Maduro.
I urge you to use your position in The Congress to de-escalate what is wrong about our incursions into sovereign nations. News reports indicate about 75 people died in the action to capture Maduro. Our nation should think twice before repeating this mistake at the cost of dozens of human lives.
The president is not good at starting on time. One might say he is undisciplined.
At his inaugural ball, President Donald J. Trump said that his “proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.” What planet is he living on? I understand his rationale of peace through strength. In the case of Venezuela it is as bogus as a three dollar bill. The weekend operations escalated war-like behavior, not peace-making. If peace is what he wants, Trump is going in the opposite direction.
According to the Military Times, U.S. military operations are surging under Trump. He has overseen at least 626 air strikes, compared with 555 for President Joe Biden during all four years of his term. Military operations occurred in eight countries listed in the article. Donald Trump is not a peacemaker.
I viewed the entire press conference about weekend operations in Venezuela. It was hard to stomach all the misrepresentations and lies — the self-aggrandizement — yet it yielded a couple of things.
As many of us believed, the invasion and kidnapping of the Venezuelan president was about taking the country’s oil. Some in the United States have been lusting after it for decades. Trump confirmed this during the presser. How U.S. oil companies would proceed is sketchy at best.
The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported on Sunday:
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference where he boasted that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.” (Cedar Rapids Gazette front page, Jan. 4, 2026).
Not so fast! Shortly after Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as Venezuela’s new president she pushed back on Trump. “We are determined to be free,” she said, according to the New York Times. “What is being done to Venezuela is a barbarity.”
“We had already warned that an aggression was underway under false excuses and false pretenses, and that the masks had fallen off, revealing only one objective: regime change in Venezuela,” she said. “This regime change would also allow for the seizure of our energy, mineral and natural resources. This is the true objective, and the world and the international community must know it.” (New York Times, Jan. 3, 2026).
What should happen next is Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and General Dan Caine — and probably others — are removed from office. The only remaining question is how that gets done.
On Sunday, Jan. 4, Veterans For Peace was part of an anti-war demonstration in Iowa City. Here are some photographs I took.
No War.We The People.No War. No billionaires above the law.Ed Flaherty of Veterans For Peace speaking at the anti-war demonstration on Jan. 4, 2026.
My annual applesauce cake fresh from the oven. Served with home made apple butter..
Whatever you do, Katie bar the gate! Don’t let 2025 back in no matter what!
I mean, seriously! Republicans could screw up the simplest things and did, in spades. Social Security was cruising along with its usual issues and along came Trump and DOGE, then Bam!
The Social Security Administration — the sprawling federal agency that delivers retirement, disability and survivor benefits to 74 million Americans — began the second Trump administration with a hostile takeover.
It ends the year in turmoil. A diminished workforce has struggled to respond to up to 6 million pending cases in its processing centers and 12 million transactions in its field offices — record backlogs that have delayed basic services to millions of customers, according to internal agency documents and dozens of interviews.
Long-strained customer services at Social Security have become worse by many key measures since President Donald Trump began his second term, agency data and interviews show, as thousands of employees were fired or quit and hasty policy changes and reassignments left inexperienced staff to handle the aftermath. (How Social Security has gotten worse under Trump, Dec. 30, 2025, Washington Post).
So many people depend on Social Security the problems seem unlikely to continue forever. Citizens will demand better before it gets too late. At least that is the hope.
Late last year I contacted the U.S. Institute of Peace seeking a speaker for our Armistice Day event in Iowa City. They were in terrible disarray because the president wanted to eliminate the organization. We had to find someone else, but Bam!
Next thing you know the courts ruled he couldn’t close it, yet still, he plastered his name on the building.
There are other examples but you get my point. If the worm is turning on the Trump Administration, like many believe it is, we need to be ready to step up and do what we can to run Republicans out of the U.S. Capitol. For me, that means getting my physical condition back to where it needs to be, conserving resources, and then getting involved in the rapidly approaching midterm elections.
Our world is changing and all hands will be needed on deck. I have seven words for today: The day we took our country back. Fit reason to celebrate the new year.
While dropping off four fire extinguishers for recycling in the county seat, nature called. The nearest public restroom was in the county administration building. The parking lot was almost empty, so I pulled in and did my business. On the way back to the car, I ran into the sheriff in his dress uniform. We exchanged pleasantries.
I’ve known him since he was elected to the city council in 2008. When he and his family moved outside city limits, I advised him as he started a garden. I worked on his campaign for sheriff. During the 2024 precinct caucuses, he, his spouse, and I were the only people attending on that cold, snowy evening. He is one of the good guys. If it matched his uniform, he would wear a white hat.
The encounter served me to ask, “What’s going on with my life?” That’s a rhetorical question because I know quite well what’s going on. I retired early so I could have some kind of creative life before I get infirm. As I exited the parking lot and turned west toward the warehouse club, I wondered how many more sunrises will I get?
A fierce urgency consumes me, or as Dr. King put it, “the fierce urgency of now.” There is much to accomplish, and given my good health and time left, more than a few things can be done. I need immediate, vigorous, and positive action in my life. The brief conversation with the sheriff informed me there is no reason to wait. The time for good works is now.
Each day I walk on the state park trail I observe my world. Because of when I walk, sunrises are a main feature. Not only can the sky be beautiful at that hour, it reminds us of the promise of a new day. Sunrises are more than enough reason to go on living. And so, I shall, as long as there is another.
My veterans group asked about having a social hour at the Hilltop Tavern in Iowa City last Friday. I don’t visit many taverns yet I like folks in our group and it was located across the street from the grocer from which I needed provisions. I drove the 14 miles to the county seat, parked in the grocery store parking lot, and walked across the street to get there.
The hill in “hilltop” refers to what was known as Rees’ Hill. This is from the Our Iowa Heritage website:
The area was generally known as Rees’ Hill – reflecting the winery and wine garden owned by Jacob and Agatha Rees across from the Hilltop Tavern location. The wine garden was well known and popular with Goosetown residents during the 1880s (and likely earlier). Jacob’s death in 1889, and Agatha’s (and son Frank’s) deaths in 1893 likely resulted in the closure of the winery. For many years, the property was either unused or planted for strawberries or general nursery. This property is where the Hy-Vee grocery store and gas station exist now at the corner of North Dodge and Prairie du Chien and occupied two acres. (The Origins of Iowa City’s Hilltop Tavern by Derek (D.K.) Engelen, Our Iowa Heritage).
The tavern opened after prohibition ended and has been in operation ever since. When I entered through the door in the photo, the bar was right there on the right, maybe 20 feet from me. People behind the bar immediately recognized that I entered and inquired what I wanted. I found my friends in a large, adjacent room with three pool tables and ordered a draft beer.
My friend, a banker before retirement, brought a roll of quarters so we could play eight ball. I hadn’t played since grade school but we formed teams and racked the balls twice. None of us were talented at the game, yet it helped pass the time by encouraging conversation.
What do aging septuagenarian veterans talk about on a Friday afternoon?
One of us recently had hip replacement surgery, and that took a bit of time. I obviously know hip surgery exists, but haven’t discussed it with someone who had it. I had questions. It turned out someone else had knee replacement surgery, so that led to a discussion of the differences between the two procedures.
About that time, someone walked up to ask if we minded if he played music on what in earlier years would be called a jukebox. We didn’t mind, and one of our party asked him to play some Kenny Rogers, which he did.
Being veterans, we discussed the extrajudicial executions of people suspected of being drug runners in the Caribbean Sea, and whether Admiral Mitch Bradley, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, would be the scapegoat for the president and secretary of defense to avoid responsibility for two specific killings that were clearly illegal. We drew no conclusions.
The prior day, the Iowa Legislative Services Agency released the first county supervisor redistricting plan. The Iowa Legislature earlier voted to require certain counties that elected supervisors at-large to divide into districts. Their idea is that creates an opportunity to elect some Republicans, although the logic is based on deceptive arguments. A lawsuit was filed to stop this process. Our group agreed the court system had little time to make a decision because of the long lead time to plan an election. We were in a wait and see mode until the lawsuit is resolved.
We talked some organizational business, finished our beverages and game, and headed out. It was a pleasant way for aging peace warriors to spend an afternoon in these trying times.
How do I feel now that the Democrats won the election? I feel it is the dawning of a new era, full of potential to make the country a better place for us all. It is a time to take control of what is lagging in my life and make something in the active days remaining. (Personal Journal, Nov. 19, 2006).
When Barack Obama won the presidency two years later, these feelings deepened. It affected me personally in that I felt I could leave my employer of 25 years and strike out again on my own. The country was going to be okay.
It was a false landing.
The reaction of the electorate in 2010 was brutal. It got worse. With today’s trifectas in the state and national governments, Republicans have been dismantling the world we knew. If in 2006 I felt Democrats had arrived, that feeling is gone today as we struggle our way back into a majority, or at least into breaking the trifecta. We can do that, yet the old ways are unlikely to work.
Iowa has been a Republican state for as long as I can remember. As Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan pointed out,
There were only two windows EVER – one in the 1960s and one from ’06-’10 – where Iowa Democrats held a trifecta of the House, Senate, and Governor. Democrats typically did not run things, but made up a large enough minority that the GOP needed them to govern. So compromises were struck. (Sullivan’s Salvos, Nov. 27, 2025 by Rod Sullivan).
I remember the landslide victory of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and the coattails he had in Iowa and everywhere. The election replaced ten-year incumbent Republican Congressman Fred Schwengel with Democrat John Schmidhauser, for whom my father campaigned. However, the landslide did not have staying power and Schwengel was reelected after Schmidhauser served a single term.
During the 2006 election, Dave Loebsack was elected to Congress and served until January 2021. Notably, Loebsack won in part by running up the voter margin in Johnson County. His successor in the Congress, Mariannette Miller-Meeks buffered the effectiveness of that liberal county, margin-style strategy and won three elections. Loebsack was an effective congressman, yet his success has not yet been replicated.
Where do we go from here? We go on living our best lives.
While Iowa voted for Richard Nixon in 1960, our family was proud to have supported John F. Kennedy and claim him as our president. The national impetus after JFK’s assassination was to elect LBJ and Iowa voted for him and other Democrats like Schmidhauser. It was a landslide like no other in American politics. There will be a similar impetus in the electorate as Republicans overstep their mandate in our present political life. What Republicans are doing already negatively affects so many people I know. Our lives are poorer for their governance and that will not stand.
This time, Democrats must realize any victory lacks permanence. There is no landing platform. If anything voters are more fragmented than ever with the help of computer applications we all use. If Democrats break the trifecta, or gain a majority, we must do everything we can to advance our agenda as quickly as we can, knowing the period of opportunity will have a short half-life. We can win an election, yet permanent change does not appear to be part of the bargain. With staying power off the table, we must work at it both before and after the election. I believe we can do that.
I am hopeful a good life is still possible in Iowa. What I have come to know is it must be lived outside party politics. That’s hard for me to say as I’ve been a partisan most of my life. However, I will grasp the opportunity for a better future wherever together we can make one.
In his new book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, author Dan Wang contrasts the engineering society of building stuff in China with the lawyering society of delaying and litigating things in the United States. The comparison seems apt and I recommend the book.
It seems obvious the United States is bogged down with lawyerly concerns, beginning with the current president. Donald Trump has weaponized the Justice Department to serve his every whim. Likewise, he has a large stable of attorneys representing him on countless legal matters. More than any person I know, the president is the living incarnation of “lawyering up.” How is that working for most Americans?
The problem I see is the president’s approach results in China getting way out ahead of the United States in technology development important to our global future. China’s embrace of renewable energy alone will make them a formidable power going forward. They who control energy can control a lion’s share of the economy. The president should get out of the way and enable the country to embrace renewable energy now.
The downside of lawyering up is we can’t develop technological innovation to create a society in which we all want to live.
2025 was a sleeper election in Big Grove precinct. There were three at-large school board director contests and incumbents were the only candidates on the ballot. There was no known write-in campaign so incumbents won:
Results screen captured from the Johnson County, Iowa auditor’s results page 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 5, 2025
Daniel Coons won his school board election to fill a vacancy:
Results screen captured from the Johnson County, Iowa auditor’s results page 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 5, 2025
There was one Kirkwood Community College Director on the ballot and one candidate.
Results screen captured from the Johnson County, Iowa auditor’s results page 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 5, 2025
On Sept. 26, I wrote about the election in the nearby City of Solon: “Greg Morris seems likely to win one council seat. Through his work with the volunteer fire department he is well known in the community and a constant, positive presence. Incumbents for council have an advantage, but it could be a jump ball for their seats. Will see if any issues arise that make this a race.” Here are the results:
Results screen captured from the Johnson County, Iowa auditor’s results page 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 5, 2025
As expected, Greg Morris was the top vote getter for three positions. The two Democratic incumbents, Lauren Whitehead and Cole Gabriel, lost their elections to newcomers Tim Gordon and Matthew Macke. When the City of Solon has a mind to change things, they do.
The second No Kings Rally in Mount Vernon, Iowa, on Oct. 18, 2025, was much better attended than the previous one. I did not count yet there were at least 500 people participating. The rally started off with a gathering outdoors at the First Street Community Center, then walked a block or so to line the streets at Highway One and First Street. Here’s what the rally looked like.
Community Center RallyCrowd size.Another crowd shot.The U.S. is all of US.
About all I heard from the speaker was, “something, something, Heather Cox Richardson.”
I found some farmer friends with whom I talked about apple trees. Former Iowa House member David Osterberg was there. He represented us when we first moved to Big Grove Township. Former Congressman Dave Loebsack arrived early to get a good perch. We reminisced about his first election to the Congress in 2006. Here are Dave and Terry Loebsack with their flags.
Terry and Dave Loebsack at the No Kings Rally in Mount Vernon, Iowa on Oct. 18, 2025.
There were hundreds of people, and many signs.
Release the filesNavy Vet fighting for Democracy again!Stand Up!No Kings I love America!Along Highway One.More signs.
The crowd stretched for blocks.
On the corner.Looking up hillLooking toward the hilltop from the end of the protest line.
And these…
Costumed protesters.Flags.
The clear autumn day was a backdrop for everyone to feel good about standing up for our rights. A lot of work remains to take back our government for everyone. Days like this make us hopeful. The feeling is infectious.
Journey Home 
You must be logged in to post a comment.