Years ago when a tribe in Nevada was trying to get land back, they were hopeful as they were told you can't steal land legally. Unfortunately for them the Dawes Act of 1887 did exactly that. Today we are told you can't legally steal money, but that is exactly what is going on when your property is assessed legally for way more than the property could actually sell for. As homeowners, we are legally being robbed.
A few days ago someone wrote suggesting the new Interstate-74 bridge be named to honor two area legislators. While admirable, I would suggest the current name be retained, the Iowa-Illinois Memorial Bridge, named in honor of World War I veterans.
Riding on President Biden’s coattails, Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks, a Republican who voted against the American Relief Plan, is making hay from a tour administering COVID-19 vaccine shots.
With a deadly pandemic, an economic downturn, the climate crisis and an urgent need for racial and economic justice, President Joe Biden already has plenty on his plate. But another cause demanding federal attention is turning up in people’s sinks and the nation’s waterways.
Outrage over the new Georgia law is warranted. It's an overt suppression scheme — aimed at Black voters, specifically, and overall turnout, generally. But before we give much more oxygen to the measure's red herring, criminalizing distribution of food and water to people in long lines at the polls, let's highlight its dangerous core: allowing elected officials to manipulate election outcomes.
While watching period dramas, I like to relate the era to my own family to understand the historical timeframe. My grandmother would’ve been 12 at the beginning of Downton Abbey and my father five at the end of it, two years before my mother was born. The characters of Downton were introduced to electricity, motorcars and telephones. The series made note of how the young accepted change with calmness, whereas the older generations were suspicious of the new inventions.
In his essay "On Studies," the 17th Century philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon wrote something worth thinking about:
Following are seller, buyer, property description and price of property. Note: price is an estimate based on revenue stamps that are bought from the county.
What happened in Moline’s elections last week is a rarity in the Quad-Cities. We can’t remember the last time voters rejected a mayor and all the incumbent aldermen in an election. The closest we can recall was in Davenport in the late 1990s when nearly all the council was turned out largely because of a controversial development project.