Blogs

Baseball has spring training, football’s got its training camps. But for a political junkie like me, nothing compares with the opening of the presidential primary season.

Some 19 candidates, give or take, recently swarmed a Republican forum in New Hampshire in search of a kind word and a smile from voters there. They spent much of their time arm-wrestling each other over who hated Hillary Clinton more.

The proposed "Premiering Bettendorf" comprehensive plan – unveiled at a public meeting this week (4/14) – truly would be a game-changer for community development if adopted as is by the city council.

For starters, the plan would replace the more than two dozen very specific land zoning classifications with three broad land use categories using low- to high-density classifications.

That harsh whine you hear in the background — like a buzzsaw getting ready for a log to come down the chute — is the vast right-wing conspiracy revving its engines.

America Rising, an opposition research Super PAC that lives to trash the Clintons, dashed off a press release challenging the notion that Hillary was going to “drive to Iowa” to start her campaign as she said she would. Hillary doesn’t drive, it said. Someone would have to drive her.

On March 3, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walked into our Capitol as though he owned the place, stuck a thumb in President Barack Obama’s eye, and walked out to multitudes of cheering Republicans.

Is that a mensch or what?