Letter of the Day

The shenanigans of the Republican Party in Des Moines lately have been nothing short of amazing. Sometimes just one sentence from them can say volumes. In a story about the dumping of Stewart Iverson and the election of Mary Lundby as replacement Iowa Senate Republican leader, (GOP senators try out an urban, centrist view, Globe Gazette, 12 April) Sen. Dave Mulder, R-Sioux Center, was quoted as saying, “Everything you hear around here is we’re going in the tank.”

That one sentence explains why the desperate Republicans would take such a drastic action. They are so afraid of losing their control in the Senate that they are paying far too little attention to the business of the people that must be done at the near-end of this year’s legislative session.

If those Republicans in the Senate were paying as much attention to wrapping up the session as they are worrying about next fall’s elections, we’d all be better off.

On a second front, you just gotta love the opportunism of a guy like Jim Nussle. The gross overpaying of a couple of so-called executives of a job training group in Des Moines is being investigated by “a myriad of agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Iowa Department of Public Safety and the Polk County Attorney’s Office” (Globe Gazette, April 11).

Now Nussle says that isn’t enough; we need yet another state agency, the Office of the Inspector General. Apparently, five offices in three levels of government still need company. This from a guy who wants to be called a conservative and who wants to be governor? Give me a break.
--JOHN GRONINGA, Mason City

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