Checklist For War

Posted on March 12, 2026 by Trish Nelson

Former FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson

Previously pulished in The Cedar Rapids Gazette

Wars have checklists. The U.S. should use them

by Nicholas Johnson

If you mow your lawn with a push mower your checklist is short: Step one, find mower. Step two, push it through the grass.

If you’re planning a vacation, wedding, or Thanksgiving dinner, the checklist becomes longer.

What’s this got to do with our war with Iran? Simply that wars also have checklists, and it’s not clear whether we’re using them.

For starters, you can’t just have a war anywhere.

As maritime administrator in the mid ‘60s, I needed to travel to Vietnam. The White House asked that while there, I gather and share my thoughts about the war. My conclusion: “You can’t play basketball on a football field.”

That’s to say, there are circumstances when war is not an easy option (e.g., you can’t speak the language; don’t know the culture, history or territory; you wear uniforms where the enemy doesn’t; there’s no front line).

My analysis had no impact — except for the White House decision I’d do better as FCC commissioner than maritime administrator. Oh, and the Iowa women’s team later showed it could play basketball on the Kinnick Stadium football field.

This month, as I’ve watched our military efforts spread from Iran to broader chaos for 15 Mideast countries and beyond, it brought to mind a 34-year old checklist proposed by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and his senior military assistant, General Colin Powell. It was a list of the considerations and questions they felt should be resolved before a war.

Was this working checklist known to, or used by, those civilians who are dictating to the military a variety of strategies and reasons for our latest war? Or did the White House assume there was no more need for checklists and planning now than when pushing a mower through the grass?

The checklist: Clear Objective: Do we have a precisely defined, attainable goal?

Goal: Is it sufficiently important, clearly defined, and understood?

Vital Interests: Is a key national security interest at stake?

Alternatives: Have all nonviolent means been tried and failed?

Military: Will military air operations contribute or impede our goal?

Requirements: What will our goal require in troops, material and lives?

Success: What will constitute “success”?

Risks and Costs: Is “success” worth the possible impacts, risks and costs?

Knowledge: Do we know the language, history and terrain of the people?

Support: Will Americans, Congress and allies support a war? How long?

Exit: How can we leave without Vietnam or Afghanistan-like scenes?

Future: After we’ve left will the people be better or worse off, or the same?

Consistency: Will that be consistent with our original mission?

In the 1983 movie “War Games,” a computer counting down to a real “Global Thermonuclear War” is switched to tic-tac-toe. We might just conclude, as the computer did, that “The only winning move is not to play.”

Nicholas Johnson can be reached at mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org

 

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Harkin Institute Proposes Policies To “Dramatically Improve Iowa’s Waterways”

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Trish Nelson

by Cami Koons, Iowa Capital Dispatch
March 6, 2026

The Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement determined regulations on fertilizers, animal feeding operations and agricultural drainage, among other things are policies that would improve water quality and public health in Iowa.

The Harkin Institute released a policy report Friday as a follow-up to the comprehensive Polk County water quality report released this summer.

Adam Shriver, the institute’s director of wellness and nutrition policy, wrote in the report’s forward that it contains “a set of policies that, if followed, would dramatically improve Iowa’s waterways to protect the health of current and future generations.”

The report is authored by John Norris, a Harkin Institute senior fellow and a former Polk County administrator, Norris helped spur the Central Iowa Source Water Research Assessment, or CISWRA, that was released by Polk County over the summer.

The report compiled more than 4,000 hours of research from a team of 16 scientists that looked at the Des Moines and Raccoon river watersheds. These rivers serve as drinking water, recreation and fishing streams for Iowa’s most populous city.

The multiyear assessment analyzed a number of contaminants in the rivers, including nitrate. Researchers concluded nitrate levels in these rivers are high primarily because of agricultural runoff into the watersheds.

The policy report from the Harkin Institute points to the CISWRA results as proof that “Iowa’s water is becoming unsafe.” High nitrate concentrations in the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers this summer also led to a lawn watering ban in central Iowa, which was necessary for Central Iowa Water Works to keep nitrate concentrations in drinking water below the federal guidelines.

Iowa is part of a multistate project to reduce nutrient load entering the Mississippi River, but the Harkin Institute’s report said this voluntary program, the Nutrient Reduction Strategy, is “inadequate” to protect public health and natural resources in the state.

The nutrient reduction strategy calls for, and supports, voluntary adoption of conservation measures like cover crops, edge of field practices and wetland restoration. But the Harkin Institute report said without “enforceable standards,” the strategy has not been effective in improving water quality.

Norris’ report recommends a statewide water management strategy that prioritizes water quality monitoring, enforcement against pollution, reform to agricultural drainage systems and reducing agricultural applications of fertilizer, manure and pesticides.

The report joins several organizations in a call for state funding for the Iowa Water Quality Information System, a network of monitors that provide real-time information on water quality metrics, including nitrate concentrations, across the state.

One pillar of the report involves addressing the “elephant in the room” — agricultural practices that, according to CISWRA, are the primary contributors to stream pollution. Policies recommended by the report include: an elimination of the sales tax exemptions for certain fertilizers, a moratorium on new confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, regulations on CAFO spacing and waste management, 50-foot buffer strips along water bodies and expanded cover crop adoption.

Tile lines, or drainage systems that help remove excess water from agricultural fields, are believed to provide a more direct route for agricultural nutrients to enter waterways. The report calls for changes to state drainage districts, to hold them accountable for discharges and to allow the state to test and set limits for nitrates in tile lines.

Other policy recommendations in the report include: more research and education on regenerative farming practices, more support for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources which would be tasked with enforcing policies, and to fund the state’s Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust.

In addition to state policies, it also outlines a number of changes to the federal Farm Bill — like tying agricultural funding programs to conservation outcomes, or making conservation easements permanent — that would, “prioritize farmers, consumers, soil, and water over agribusiness interests.”

“This report is a call to action to a crisis that will continue to get worse if bold actions commensurate to the scale of the crisis and threat to the public are not taken,” the report said.

The Harkin Institute is set to host its 2026 Harkin on Wellness Symposium March 11, with a focus on the treatment and prevention of cancer.

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com.

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On The Frontlines Fighting Corporate Agriculture

Posted on March 10, 2026 by Trish Nelson

CAFO lot – Photo: iaenvironment.org

Check out this recording of a live March 7 event with Chris Jones at the Iowa City Public Library.

It is tragic how Iowa’s natural environment – native prairie, rivers, lakes and streams – have been so terribly degraded. Chris covers how this happened over the years and decades then takes questions and discusses how to protect yourself from nitrates in your tap water and how we can begin to solve problems that have resulted in poor outcomes for farmers and the rest of us.

This is basic information for everyone to understand as we fight for clean water and a farm system that uses land and resources wisely.

From the Iowa City Public Library YouTube channel:

A discussion on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and Water Pollution in Iowa with guest speakers Sonja Trom Eayrs and Chris Jones.

Author, attorney and rural activist Sonja Trom Eayrs grew up on the Trom family farm in Dodge County, Minnesota. Her family has been on the frontlines for decades fighting corporate agriculture and the takeover of the food supply by a few multinational corporations. Sonja’a story is captured in her recent book, Dodge County, Incorporated: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America (University of Nebraska Press, Nov. 2024).

Dodge County, Incorporated is a legal drama recounting her elderly parents’ three rounds of litigation against county officials and industry insiders in Dodge County, Minnesota, in efforts to prevent a hog factory farm from going up across the road from their inter-generational family farm. It provides a rare insider’s account, showing how the corporate restructuring of rural areas and profiteering of Big Ag corporations impact the political, economic, and cultural fate of a single rural community.

Chris Jones retired in 2023 from the University of Iowa where he worked as a research engineer studying contaminant hydrology in agricultural landscapes. Prior to that he worked for the Des Moines Water Works and the Iowa Soybean Association. He has a PhD in analytical chemistry from Montana State University and a BA in Chemistry and Biology from Simpson College in Indianola. He is the author of The Swine Republic, Struggles With the Truth About Agriculture and Water Quality.

Chris is currently a candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. Check out his campaign website chrisjonesforiowa.com

This event is sponsored by 100 Grannies and the Iowa City Public Library.

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Meet Candidate Adam Peters For HD 97

Posted on March 9, 2026 by Trish Nelson

Adam Peters is a Democrat running for Iowa House to represent HD 97 covering parts of Scott County including much of east and central Davenport. 

Check out his campaign website adam4iowa

Follow:  Facebook  TikTok  Instagram

Donate

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Local Roads, Local Decisions

Posted on March 8, 2026 by Paul Deaton
Chip and seal road in Johnson County, Iowa.

The township where I live was established before Iowa Statehood. There were oak, walnut, hickory, ash, elm, and cottonwood thriving here among numerous pure springs. The first sawmill and grist mill was built in 1839 by Anthony Sells on Mill Creek. Put the big groves of trees together with the sawmill and you have us. The forests were long gone when we bought our lot here. What dominates the landscape is culture we and others brought with us to an area where all trees indigenous to this part of Iowa once existed in abundance yet no longer do. Part of that culture was roads.

HF2667 and SF2394 have been introduced in the Iowa Legislature. They essentially let industry interests, meaning real estate developers, the Master Builders, the Home Builders, and the Concrete and Asphalt Associations, mandate what cities and counties are allowed to do with regard to design standards for roads in new developments. On March 4, HF2667 passed in the House 61-36, so this week’s action is in the Iowa Senate.

The industry wants freedom to set very low road design standards. They want those standards to be uniform for all new development in the state. They want standards to ignore differing local conditions such as soil types and terrain.  If local governments wanted better local standards, taxpayers would have to foot the bill, not developers.  These bills are wrong for Iowa.

Iowa road design standards are currently developed by experts at the ISU Institute for Transportation. A proposed law would shift control of the program to the Iowa Department of Transportation. The bill would require statewide compliance and impose financial penalties for non-compliance, even when local governments make changes based on site-specific conditions. The fiscal note estimates the change would remove $450,000 in revenue from Iowa State University and require the DOT to hire two employees costing $231,000. Another concern is which private-industry representatives might serve on the new board overseeing the program.

If the new bills became law, that could enable developers to build subpar roads in new developments and prevent local governments from having control. It is part of the Republican agenda of making Iowa a nanny state.

Developers must address roads while planning a subdivision, at the same time accountants put a pencil to it and determine potential profit. Saving money on roads is part of extracting every last dime out of a project.  When low-quality roads break down, the cost is paid by  taxpayers and homeowners, not developers.

When our developer turned his farm into a housing subdivision, he didn’t know what he was doing. There was a lawsuit regarding wastewater treatment. He spent the least possible amount on our two miles of roads, using chip and seal pavement. Evidence of his lack of financial expertise can be found in his declaration of bankruptcy.

The building trades behind the new bills do know what they are doing: extracting every possible penny from the project for investors. If the bill passes, it would play right into their hands.

It’s time for a talk with your state senator to urge them to reject the bill. Here is a link to SF 2394. Here is how to contact your legislators

Iowa does not need a new road-design-standards system that is worse than what we have now.

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War With Iran Without Congress

Posted on March 7, 2026 by Paul Deaton
Jan. 18, 2016 – Photo Credit – Des Moines Register

On Monday I sent emails to U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst as well as to U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks on the subject of the U.S. aggression against Iran.

My message was simple: “I urge you to support the Kaine-Paul Senate resolution, S.J. Res. 104, the bipartisan war powers resolution that would prohibit strikes against Iran. Thank you for reading my message.” The email to Miller-Meeks referenced the House companion, the Massie-Khanna House resolution, H. Con. Res. 38.

The referenced resolutions are also simple: “Directing the President pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution to remove United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The vote was scheduled for Wednesday in the Senate and the votes to get a simple majority were not there. Now what?

Senator Grassley responded on March 6, 2026. Read his letter here.

I reject the Iowa Republican position exemplified by gubernatorial candidate Brad Sherman, who wrote in part, “I support President Trump’s action against Iran. These actions are not an initiation of war, they are a response to a war already declared by Iran. This is the inevitable response to an evil regime that has openly and continually stated its goal is to destroy America and has actively sought the means to do so.” Was Iran attacking the United States? No. Is Iran an imminent threat to the United States? No. This position abandons the caution about foreign wars that once defined Iowa Republicans.

The president failed to address with the American people the reasons for attacking a sovereign country. On Monday, he said 49 top Iranian leaders had been killed, according to CBS News. The joint operation with Israel did kill key Iranian leaders. Anyone familiar with Iran’s political system knows new leadership can be approved quickly. No one I know gave the aging Ayatollahs high marks. They were easy targets for Israeli ordnance. The younger Iranian replacements will be formidable and could be worse. There has been insufficient public discussion of this.

Is the motivation to address the risk of a nuclear armed Iran with delivery systems? Give me a break. While Republican opponents of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly called the Iran Deal, felt it was insufficient, the agreement placed verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear program. When the president tore up that deal, he lost standing to claim this action was about nuclear weapons.

Is the president part of God’s plan, being anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth? The Military Religious Freedom Foundation reports receiving complaints from non-commissioned officers who say their commanders told them the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Donald J. Trump was ‘anointed by Jesus’ to trigger Armageddon.” Read more about this here. They logged similar complaints across more than 40 different units located in at least 30 military installations. One NCO said their commander’s remarks “destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.” The Pentagon has not responded publicly to these allegations. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth should consider John Prine’s message, “Now Jesus don’t like killin’, no matter what the reason’s for. And your flag decal won’t get you into heaven any more.”

Is the Iran aggression solely to take attention away from the Epstein files? More than a few people are saying so, yet I don’t know that this war will accomplish that for the president. Maybe people in the administration can’t walk and chew gum at the same time but the American people can.

When the president admonished the people of Iran, “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations,” he washed his hands of the consequences of this conflict. That is typical for Donald J. Trump.

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Trump’s Political Capital “Declining Rapidly”

Posted on March 6, 2026 by Trish Nelson

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Voting 2026: Don’t Despair. Prepare.

Posted on March 6, 2026 by Trish Nelson

Brennan Center
‪@brennancenter.org‬

The conflict in Iran has intensified efforts to undermine U.S. elections. Brennan Center experts break down the legal stakes and what must be done to keep elections free and fair on The Briefing with Michael Waldman.  What state and local officials need to do and are doing. What voters need to know.

“All of the things the administration plans to do are against the law. The law is on the voters’ side. Don’t despair. Prepare.”

What do state and local officials need to do?

“They need to and are preparing. They’re gaming out scenarios. They are planning their legal options. They also need to prepare to make sure if something does happen they need to make sure that voting continues and that it continues in an orderly way. They need plans and backup plans.

Voters. They need to educate voters as to all of their options for voting so that voters can prepare and know they can vote early, they can vote by mail, and if there is a disruption at the polling place whether the polling place has been extended or whether they can go somewhere else to vote.

Every single eventuality needs to be planned out by election officials and in collaboration with law enforcement and others to make sure that things go without a glitch as much as possible.”

 

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Is The Handwriting On The Wall For Iowa Farmers?

Posted on March 5, 2026 by Trish Nelson

Cyanobacteria

Iowa farmer Zack Smith:

“The industry has been built for the last 30-40 years on having that wide open unregulated window. As that changes along with public sentiment likely with the issues we’re dealing with in Iowa  – with the nitrates, the load on the treatment plants, the cancer rates, the beach closures –  as we become a smaller and smaller voting block I just don’t see how it’s realistic to think that we can keep doing the same thing, producing awful results for other people and expecting that voting block is not going to say, “hold on a second here.”

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What Does Trump’s War In Iran Have To Do With American Elections?

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Trish Nelson

It is my impression that there are a number of politicos out there who don’t want us to bring up the topic of election security because they are afraid it will cause people to not vote because the thinking is, they will believe the election would already be lost if they heard Trump may try to rig it. I’m sympathetic, but it needs to be talked about anyway.

I really doubt it will suppress voters to discuss real issues in a realistic manner. No one is saying don’t bother to vote. It’s simply about being realistic about what Donald Trump’s limits are, which we haven’t seen any yet.

And people are concerned.  At our caucus this year the topic of what are we doing to keep our elections secure came up.  In response to those expressed concerns, a statement was made, “it’s not that easy to rig elections because the states are in charge.. we’ll be ready with lots of poll watchers” or words to that effect.

True, states are in charge of elections according to the Constitution but Donald (aka The felon in the White House) has a plan for that! And we all have seen how much TFIWH and his Republican enablers adhere to the Constitution when it doesn’t suit their purposes. Not to mention, Iowa has a Republican trifecta that simply can’t be trusted, to put it bluntly.

Also, one can only assume it wasn’t that easy to, for example, get people to storm the capitol on January 6, 2020 and a host of other terrible, horrible blows that have been visited upon democracy under the Trump regime – but they tried. And when they fail they try again and again. So let’s not freak out about it but neither should we be in denial about what they are capable of trying, and realize how close they came to getting away with supremely crazy stuff like the fake elector scheme, one of my personal favorites.

Mark Elias  – whose law firm has won over sixty court cases fighting the Trump administration on election law – makes his case to the public in this video below that there is one fear driving Trump’s behavior, and we need to be very concerned about what he is up to, because we will need to be ready to fight back.  I think it goes without saying, Marc Elias knows what he’s talking about and he says this about Donald Trump:

“What he really fears is that in November we are going to vote Republicans in congress out of power.” – Marc Elias

“If you want to understand American politics in 2026 you can never forget that almost every event is explainable at least in part by Donald Trump’s insatiable appetite for power. He wants to be an authoritarian. He wants to be a dictator. And that the greatest threat to that, the greatest threat to his power is you and me. That’s right, the voter.

What he really fears is that in a few months, this November, we’re going to vote Republicans out of power in congress. Because whatever you may think about the Democrats or any particular elected official we know one thing. The Republican congress are just his enablers. The Republican congress are just his doormat. They will do whatever Donald Trump tells them to do.

What really motivates him is election denialism and the twin manifestations of it, voter suppression and election subversion –  that’s what drives decision making in this White House.

And once you start looking for signs of it, you see it everywhere.

At 2:30 am on Saturday morning, Donald Trump did a video on Truth Social to announce the bombing of Iran. As crazy as that was that he announced a war on Truth Social in the middle of the night, it’s even crazier that two hours later he wrote, “Iran tried to interfere in the 2020 and 2024 elections to stop [Trump] and now faces renewed war with the United States.” That’s right. The very next social media post, back to back.

The one announcing the war was him tying a connection between this alleged interference in 2020 and 2024 and the war that he had just launched.

These two posts tell you everything you need to know about where Donald Trump is going for the next eight months.”

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Watch this video and follow Democracy Docket on YouTube and other social media platforms.

“The 2026 midterms are the greatest threat to Trump’s power — and he knows it. Marc Elias exposes Trump’s three-pronged plot to protect his majority: False claims of foreign government election interference, a DOJ push to obtain your voter data, and a leaked executive order that would let Trump dictate voting rules to every state. This is the most dangerous threat to your vote in modern American history.”

Support Democracy Docket’s mission:
https://newsletters.democracydocket.c…
00:00 The 2026 Election Power Grab
01:09 Trump’s Election Strategy and Fear of Voters
04:41 Iran, Foreign Interference Claims, and National Security
09:05 Executive Orders and Control Over Voting
11:24 DOJ’s Push for Sensitive Voter Data
16:38 Media Silence and Institutional Failure
18:06 AI, Surveillance, and the Anthropic Clash
21:54 Connecting the Dots to 2026
26:12 What You Can Do to Fight Back

 

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