It's my opinion...

Denying human rights

President Joe Biden denies America’s best tradition and hopes, and forgets his own heritage, by severely restricting the ability of refugees to claim asylum in the United States. We are a nation of immigrants. Biden’s family came from Ireland, refugees from British starvation. Our attitudes about immigrants and refugees has always shifted through history. We are at one of those low points.

The politics informed by a false narrative — that we are being overrun at the Mexican border — demands that we deny basic human rights. This phony story has been sold for decades. The Know Nothings despised the Irish and Chinese. Now we hate on Latinos. Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president, says that immigrants poison our blood. His wife is an immigrant.

Heirs to teeming masses yearning to be free agree with Trump — lock down the border, shut down asylum, build a wall and call in the National Guard because Pedro is crossing the Rio Grande with his family. So he can get to Storm Lake and cut hogs.

President Biden, who likes to quote the Irish poets, must appreciate the tragedy and futility of shutting off asylum requests. He is compelled by the polls to put his values in his back pocket and tell the Salvadoran hoping to scoop manure “tough luck.”

Rural Iowa is emptying out. Its buildings are vacant and falling down. Schools close. And we are saying that we are being overrun? That North Dakota is full up? That Pocahontas couldn’t use a few Cubans? That we don’t need the help around here? That we don’t need young people with families in rural America?

Yeah, that’s the message.

Biden acknowledged a worldwide refugee crisis as he issued his order shutting the door on refugees. He said he had no choice in the absence of congressional action, ongoing since the last immigration reform in 1986. The Senate and White House had a compromise border bill in hand, but Trump suffocated it because it would take away an election issue. So  Biden rejuvenates a Trump policy of denying asylum requests, which already has been struck down in court. None of it makes sense. You do not solve immigration problems by foreclosing basic human rights. That’s un-American.

Feenstra gets a scare

Divisions among Iowa Republicans were evident in Tuesday’s primary elections. Rep. Randy Feenstra of Hull fended off a strong challenge from Kevin Virgil of Sutherland. Virgil indicted Feenstra for being too cozy with corporate interests, and tapped into opposition for carbon dioxide pipelines. Virgil attracted 37% of the primary vote in the Fourth Congressional District.

Populism is never far from the surface west of I-35. It kept Rep. Steve King in good stead for two decades. Feenstra takes money from Smithfield, a subsidiary of China, Inc., and that gave Virgil fodder. The challenger questioned the premise of ethanol, which is sacrosanct among the Iowa political establishment.

Virgil’s showing indicates that not all is well down on the farm. People are frustrated with the status quo. Not that they would go so far as to vote for a Democrat, Ryan Melton of Nevada, who articulates some of Virgil’s skepticism for the corporate order of things. The primary does indicate a fairly deep dissatisfaction with Feenstra within his own party in one of the most conservative districts in America. It’s because he is beholden to corporate money, pure and simple. Virgil held a light up to it.

$1 billion in loyalty

Donald Trump met with the titans of oil recently down in Texas and told them he would do anything they want if they would give him $1 billion for his campaign. People who support corn ethanol have to be crazy to vote for him. Big oil hates ethanol. When he was president, Trump attempted to waive ethanol blending requirements for petroleum refiners. He would shut down the ethanol industry if Houston told him to, and it will. Oil companies have been fighting ethanol forever. Trump could not care less about Iowa farmers, yet they appear to love him for no good reason. The oil titans probably will come through with the $1 billion, since the alternative would be clean energy.  — Art Cullen

Troublesome facts

If facts matter, here they are: Hunter Biden was found guilty by a federal district court jury in Delaware of lying about his cocaine addiction to illegally purchase and possess a gun. Donald Trump was found guilty by a state district court jury in New York of 34 counts of fraud over his hush-money payments to a porn star.

Hunter Biden is not running for president. Donald Trump is.

President Joe Biden said in the wake of his son’s conviction that he respects the rule of law and the jury’s decision. He said he would not pardon his son.

Trump calls his own conviction a sham and says the judge is corrupt. Trump pardoned criminals who worked for him. He calls the mob that attacked the Capitol on his exhortation patriots, warriors and victims, and promised to pardon the people who wanted to hang his own vice president.

The case against Hunter Biden was brought by the Justice Department under President Joe Biden. The case against Trump was brought by an independently elected local Manhattan prosecutor, not Biden’s Justice Department.

It also is a fact that Gov. Kim Reynolds, Attorney General Brenna Bird and Iowa’s entire congressional delegation declared that the Trump trial was a “sham.”

These are all established facts. You be the judge. Beyond a reasonable doubt, you can see who respects law and order, and who rails against it.

Abandoned agland

About 30 million acres of cropland were abandoned from 1986 to 2018, researchers from the University of Wisconsin reported last week in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The greatest area of abandonment was on the Great Plains, and especially around the Panhandle, resting atop the declining Ogallala Aquifer. The second-highest rate of abandonment was seen along the Mississippi River, probably from too much water.

Half the previously cultivated acres went back to pasture or grassland, particularly on the Plains.

The study generally confirms that row-crop production is intensifying in Iowa. Livestock follow feed and water. Cattle are moving north. It raises huge implications about meat production and processing, where beef production is concentrated in Dodge City, Garden City and Amarillo. You can ship corn in but not water, yet. We should guard the Dakota Aquifer jealously.

Just 20% of the abandoned acres are enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, indicating that Nature is sorting land use much faster than government policy is. The abandonment peaked between 1997 and 2002.

The researchers suggest their satellite mapping can help guide more efficient land use. Abandoned acres in southwest Kansas could be deployed for solar arrays or for semi-arid biomass production using switchgrass or sorghum. Their study, in conjunction with the University of Oklahoma and the University of Michigan, was sponsored by the Department of Energy. It shows us what they’re thinking about.

Virgil undeterred

Since last week’s primary, Kevin Virgil of Sutherland said he is considering another Republican primary against incumbent Rep. Randy Feenstra of Hull in 2026, assuming Feenstra defeats Democrat Ryan Melton of Nevada. Feenstra spent $2 million fending off Virgil, who spent just $83,000 but got nearly 40% of the Republican primary vote. Virgil won nine counties. His main issue was opposition to carbon dioxide pipelines. Virgil was supported by former Rep. Steve King, whom Feenstra defeated in a primary. Virgil says he is confident he will raise a lot more money in 2026 for an assumed primary. — Art Cullen