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We had a little fun making Peach the Newshound look like she was getting a facial, and picturing a Newell-Fonda football player in a huge stadium by using an artificial intelligence program. This is not our practice. It is important to state that we follow the guidance of the late great Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee, who said that you must never (mess) with the truth.
In truth, we have used cruder forms of AI for many years in fact gathering and image editing. Google searches are a form of AI. Adobe Photoshop allows us to enhance images for better reproduction in printing and other forms of presentation. We color-correct photos, crop the image and sharpen it. That is about the limit of what we do with AI.
We do not (mess) around with the truth. We are true to the photo — we do not insert clouds where there were none or crowns on megalomaniacs. We do not trust the answers that AI presents from lightning sweeps of the Internet, fearing garbage-in garbage-out. We do not let AI do the writing for us.
We may use AI programs to gather statistics that can be verified. We do not take its summaries at face value.
That is the value of the modern editor, or gatekeeper. When you buy a subscription you know that a human being using time-tested journalistic practices wrote the stories. (Bradlee famously told Woodward and Bernstein, “Don’t (screw) it up.” He was watching.) AI becomes a reporting and editing tool that cannot be substituted for human judgment and verification.
As you seek to make sense of our little corner of the world, rest assured that our priority is to keep the chaff in its place. The truth shall set us free. It certainly is something we will not mess with, which is why you won’t see us passing off fakery as fact — which is what much of social media trades in. Our job is to present the truth as we can best determine it. We shall not allow AI to distract us. But the picture of Peach was cute, so long as we identify it as fanciful. In our world today, those lines often are blurred. Bradlee did not say “mess.” We should be clear about that, Siri or Alexa, or whoever you are.
Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks messes around with the truth. During a fundraiser at Iowa City alongside Rep. Randy Feenstra, Miller-Meeks ticked off a list of things she doesn’t like — including “the Chinese Communist Party buying up Iowa farmland” and “California telling us how to raise hogs in Iowa.” These are things that Feenstra has prattled on about as well. He wants to be governor.
The fact is that no foreign interests are allowed to buy Iowa farmland. No way is the Chinese government allowed to buy the farm. It has not happened. It is a downright lie, and few people ever call them out for it. As for California telling us how to raise hogs, that is also a lie. If Iowa producers want to sell pork into California —and no producer is forced to market in the Golden State — then they must provide enough space for a sow to move. This has been a boon, actually, for the few independent producers left raising hogs.
Smithfield Foods was spun off as a subsidiary of China, Inc. Smithfield does dictate how hogs are raised, and both Miller-Meeks and Feenstra feed off their corporate contributions. They always forget to mention that at the fundraisers, because they are full of it.
Miller-Meeks and friends also claim that Democrats shut down the government. That is not true. Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune could reopen the government if they wanted to. They don’t want to because they are lapdogs for President Trump, who is determined to bulldoze health care in Iowa, and especially at rural hospitals and at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (the primary indigent care provider in the state).
Farmers in need of emergency assistance because of Trump’s tariffs need up to $15 billion to offset lost exports. Trump instead is buying up Argentine beef and blaming US cattlemen for high beef prices. He is not confusing cattlemen. Eventually the truth seeps through. Democrats may have caused the shutdown, but they are not capable of maintaining it. Miller-Meeks and Feenstra could vote to open the government. They refuse. That is the fact of the matter. Iowans who are afraid of losing Medicaid or their rural hospital understand the difference by now.
Father Brent Lingel, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Parish in Storm Lake, reports in the church bulletin that immigrants remain afraid. We appreciate his bearing witness to the truth. Hard-working people who support the parish fear that they could be ripped from their homes and deported to a country they do not know, even if they are legal residents or citizens.
The fear is by design. It is hateful, slanderous and counter productive. Not only is this a grave moral disorder, it is bad for business!
At least the parish priest has the courage if our politicians and major employers are a band of panderers. Earlier, Iowa’s Catholic bishops stated their “concerns” over terrorizing the faithful.
On Oct. 23, Pope Leo said: "With the abuse of vulnerable migrants, we are witnessing, not the legitimate exercise of national sovereignty, but rather grave crimes committed or tolerated by the state.
"Ever more inhuman measures are being adopted — even celebrated politically — that treat these 'undesirables' as if they were garbage and not human beings," the Chicago-native pope said.
God bless them.
And God bless our neighbors who provide for their families despite the tremendous risks. They know what freedom and responsibility mean.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that a 2024 Iowa law criminalizing immigrants illegally assumes powers held solely by the federal government. The law, SF2340, said that anyone in Iowa who previously was ordered to leave the US would be guilty of a crime and subject to arrest, with deportation from a state judge.
The appeals court ruled that the law assumes federal authority.
"The Eighth Circuit reiterated what the Supreme Court has said for over a hundred years: States have no business regulating immigration on their own," said Spencer Amdur, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union’s national immigrants’ rights project. "This law would have torn families apart and denied people their right to live in this country and seek legal protections. The court was right to strike it down, just like courts have done for other laws like this around the country."
Repeatedly we hear across rural Iowa that the biggest impediment to growth is lack of workers even at decent wages. Still, Iowa passes laws and enacts rules that bar people from living here. This law would have criminalized people even if they have federal permission to be here. The governor and attorney general would like to see local police act as immigration agents. Gov. Reynolds has deployed National Guard troops and state patrol officers to the Mexican border to assist in enforcement. These are hostile acts toward our new neighbors.
This court ruling will not relieve immigrants from their fear of being swept up, but any least it won’t be at the hands of the local police. Federal agents in masks are eager to kick down the door and lock you up even if you are a legal resident. They don’t need Iowa’s help terrorizing good people just trying to make a living in jobs nobody else wants. Like cheap pork? Want to bring down beef prices? Back off the immigrants. We should elect get grip on the reality of life in Storm Lake, where there is work to be done.
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