Blog For Iowa

There was one Republican in the past century who understood war and peace. Here is Dwight Eisenhower delivering a speech to the American Newspaper editors Association in which he discusses the cost of military buildup as only someone with his experience could. This is an excerpt from the speech. The video is only 3 minutes and the most famous quote (“every gun that is made”) starts at @ 1:20.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. ”

Once again, it was a busy week. Were you paying attention?

1) “I am going on vacation.” What Fox News host announced he was unexpectedly going on vacation? Maybe a very long vacation.

2) MOAB. What is it and why do we care this week?

3) It is odd that Easter – the most holy of Christian holidays – is a movable feast. How is the Easter date calculated?

4) Iowa’s SoS, Paul Pate, published misleading press reports in order to bolster his arguments for what legislation?

5) “On the 18th of April of Seventy-five, hardly a man is still alive” who remembers what?

6) A Russian computer programmer was arrested in Spain last Sunday. He is suspected of being involved in what major scandal currently being investigated in the US?

7) A doctor was forcibly removed from his seat on a flight from Chicago last week by what airline?

8) We are still waiting for a presidential reaction to a school shooting in what California city?

9) In an odd juxtaposition, Gov. Branstad signed a law to help detect breast cancer in women while the legislature works to defund what organization focused on women’s health?

10) Kay Ivey became the second female governor of Alabama Tuesday. Who was the first female governor of Alabama?

11) What led to Kay Ivey becoming Alabama’s second female governor?

12) How far is Seoul, South Korea from the border with North Korea should war break out?

13) In a similar vein, how far is Tokyo, Japan from North Korea approximately?

14) April 17th, 1961 is the date of what major blunder in American foreign policy?

15) What cabinet secretary got stuck on an elevator in a Miami public housing unit last week?

16) Spring brings the Masters Golf tournament. This year had an exciting playoff resulting in the first major tour win for what long time star golfer?

17) What Washington Post writer won a Pulitzer for his dogged pursuit of false charitable contribution claims by the current president?

18) One more kick in the face for Iowa’s workers as Branstad signs a bill outlawing project labor agreements with who on government construction projects?

19) A big test of Trump unpopularity comes up this week in the former congressional district of what cabinet member?

20) In one of the most classless statements ever administration spokesman Sean Spicer claimed who did not use chemicals?

Story comes out last week that Trump found out how a FISA court works weeks after he accused Obama of wire-tapping him. Let us hope he learns how a nuclear bomb works before he drops a few.

Answers:

1) Bill O’Reilly of Fox “News” as his advertisers dropped to near zero on the heals of another sex scandal

2) Mother Of All Bombs – The US’s biggest. One was dropped in Afghanistan last week on a purported ISIS hideout

3) The first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox (first day of spring)

4) voter suppression in Iowa

5) The midnight ride of Paul Revere

6) the Russian hacking of our election

7) United Air Lines

8) San Bernardino.

9) Planned Parenthood

10) Lurlene Wallace wife George Wallace in 1967 – she died in office in 1968

11) A sex scandal involving misuse of public funds and power by her predecessor, Robert Bently

12) 35 miles

13) 700 – 800 miles depending on where the mobile rocket launchers are.

14) The Bay of Pigs invasion. Unlike the current occupant of the White House, Kennedy did not blame his predecessor for the failure.

15) Ben Carson

16) Sergio Garcia

17) David Fahrenthold

18) unions – you know the usual claims of freedoms and competition

19) Tom Price.

20) Hitler. He then tried to claim Hitler did use them on Germans. Spicer was reminded that the Jews he murdered with gas were indeed Germans.

Current resident of the White House reacts to the Easter Egg Roll tomorrow: