Splitting Headache? Or Just Insanity?

As the old axiom goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Sadly, even after last week's crushing defeat in the special election in New York's 26th congressional district, the GOP is doing exactly that: returning to the same idea again.

What amazes us is not that Republicans seem to want to continue to fight a battle that it was just proven they will not win.

It's that Republicans are in denial about WHY they lost.

Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida admitted to the the Wall Street Journal over the holiday weekend that Republicans don't think it was the Republican plan that was wrong - they think it was how they framed their message about their plan to the public.

The plan proposed by Wisconsin Republican, Rep. Paul Ryan was voted down last week - with the exception of a number of Republicans who insist this is the political hill they want to die on. That vote now makes it not just Ryan's plan, but also the plan of the entire GOP.

The Republican plan isn't hard to understand. For those Americans currently 55 or above, your Medicare eligibility age will go up to 67. Some benefits will likely be clipped. For those currently below age 55 - say, age 54 - when you are supposed to begin receiving Medicare, you'll get a voucher from the government instead.  That voucher coupon is supposed to allow you to buy health care insurance from a private company. Of course, the Republican plan says that no private company will be required to sell you health insurance.

What insurance company, that is worth ANY of its stock, will sell an insurance policy to any American over the age of 67? Even for the few who won't have pre-existing conditions, the actuarial tables just don't add up to any kind of worthwhile risk for an insurance company.

This isn't rocket science - but it IS the Republican plan for "saving" Medicare. The only thing the current Republican Party honestly wants to save though, is the name Medicare, so they can slap it on their health care privatization plan.

There ARE some actions that previous iterations of the Republican Party approved that would help lower health care costs for everyone - like the individual mandate, which they invented and supported for most of the last twenty years. Instead of supporting those parts of the ACA they agree with, then focusing on the parts they still want changed, Republicans continue to demonize the entire Affordable Care Act as "ObamaCare" as though it doesn't include any ideas they originated.

If Republican legislators were truly interested in improving policy - which is their JOB - they would also have to make clear what parts of the ACA they originally stood for, including the individual health care mandate which they invented.

As Johnathan Bernstein pointed out in the Washington Post over the weekend, there aren't currently any incentives for Republicans to get their policy positions straight. As Republican Rep. Stearns clearly said, to them, it's about how the GOP's message on that flawed Ryan plan was framed - not the flaws in the policy itself, but the message.

We know some Republicans think taking another swing at health care reform is too smart by half.

Sadly, the facts make it clear that taking another whack at health care reform is only going to give the GOP a splitting headache going into 2012.

Friday Funday: Don't Forget To Remember

As we're sure you already know, Memorial Day marks the traditional beginning of summer in the U.S., the time for sun, fun, and for most children, summer vacation from school.

Of course, it's also the primary holiday to honor those Americans who have died in the service of their country. We thank those service members today, and wish that no other Americans, now serving, would ever be forced to join the rosters of those who died while in service to the nation.

Some people believe this holiday should be observed exclusively in somber and quiet respect. While we understand that position, we tend to believe that attitude is all wrong.

Memorial Day shouldn't just be about those men and women who died for our freedoms.

It should also be about celebrating that which they died for.

So, for those kids graduating high school this weekend - who have the opportunity to live in a country with relatively high academic standards - we salute you. Toss that cap and tassel with pride this weekend.

For those of you who are helping friends, neighbors, family, and other loved ones pick up the pieces from the weather related disasters around the country - or who are working to prevent more disasters, like flooding - we salute you too.

For all of those who keep the world running, even on holiday weekends - police, fire, and paramedics; doctors, nurses and hospital staff; members of the media; even retail workers - we salute you as well.

America isn't just a country. It's a series of communities and people tied together by common bonds, including the belief that things can always improve if we work together and believe in one another. We give each other hope to keep reaching farther; to keep working harder (and smarter);  to do the right thing, when it would be easier to do the wrong one. All of that is possible, thanks to those who were willing to give their last measure so that the rest of us might have one more day, week, month, or trip around the sun.

Memorial Day, to us, is about celebrating the lives of those servicemembers, men and women alike, from all walks of life, who made the ultimate sacrifice so that those of us still living might have better, longer lives.

We hope you remember this weekend and those who sacrificed for their country, as we all begin the next season on the calendar.

Enjoy your holiday weekend.

We'll see you when we return on Tuesday, May 31.

Time To Grow Up

As anyone who has ever been in junior high or high school knows, peer pressure can not only make individuals do and say things they wouldn't otherwise do or say - but taken to extremes, it can even be deadly.

In some twisted 'Lord of the Flies' kind of way, the Republican Party is beginning to find this out all over again as the internal politics of political puritanism they've followed over the last two decades finally bear their twisted, rotten fruit in the form of the Republican Party Civil War.

As with any so-called civil war, there are no real winners in a conflict of this kind, only degrees of losing. There have been small skirmishes in this affair for many years, now; the Bush-McCain battle in 2000, for example. This year, there have already been more than a few political causalities, including the Presidential campaigns that never came to be for Mike Huckabee and Mitch Daniels.

But the 'Fort Sumter' shot of this Republican civil war was fired earlier this week, in two parts.

The first part was the embarrassing loss on Tuesday by Republicans in the 26th Congressional District of New York. In 2010, even when the rest of New York state thought bombastic, crazy Carl Palladino was too conservative, even for them, the 26th chose Palladino. Yet on Tuesday night, the voters in New York's 26th gave the Democratic candidate a six point victory over the GOP's pick.

For comparison, using statistics, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com pointed out that average candidates in the 26th, in a two-way race, should have resulted in an outcome where the Republican won by 12 points. In case you're unclear, that's an 18 point swing, from Republican to Democratic, from what it should have been, to what it was, in a district so conservative that political wonks used to refer to it as 'ruby red.'

That loss, while embarrassing to Republicans, was merely the light flash from the metaphorical gun.

The bullet was the failed vote in the Senate on Wednesday of the Republican budget, which would have killed Medicare as we know it.

With the exception of five Republican Senators - including, surprisingly, Rand Paul of Kentucky - EVERY Republican Senator voted to kill Medicare on Wednesday.

It's a fact acknowledged by nearly everyone on both sides of the left-right political divide, that when the 2012 elections heat up this summer and fall, everyone trying to unseat a Republican - including other nominal Republicans - will be pillorying anyone who voted for the Republican budget proposal that failed so spectacularly on Wednesday.

We hate to repeat ourselves two days in a row, but we've warned our Republican friends of this day for many years, now. The insanity of political puritanism is exactly what exploded in the face of the Democratic Party in 1980, dividing the far left from the center-left for a dozen years.

Thirty years later, it appears the Republican Party may be about to - finally - go through a similar maturation process.

We'd like to think Republicans will refrain from completely savaging one another, as they enter into the full-fledged phase of their intra-party civil war.

We'd like to to think that - but, sadly, we know better.

She Ain't Foolin'. Neither Are We.

For at least the last week, it seems as though the topic we began thinking might top our list the day before is not the one we end up writing about or publishing the following day.

Today is no exception.

We began on Tuesday night by thinking we'd look a bit deeper into certain legislative efforts finding sad success in Nebraska and elsewhere. New laws are being proposed - and some even passed, like those in Nebraska - that are attempting to box women into specific health care situations while removing their choices on how to manage their own health care needs.

We can't even begin to note how disgusted we were at one misogynist Republican lawmaker from Kansas, who made it clear on Tuesday that he believes women should pay for unique, female-only health care insurance, because they should "plan" on having things like rape happen to them.

This topic is one we may still address soon. However, one of the most powerful female forces we know of, Mother Nature, decided she wasn't exactly fond of our story choice and directed our attention to her latest acts of destruction instead.

In case you missed it, massive storms rolled through the Midwest and Texas last night, even near the already hard-hit town of Joplin, Missouri.

So far, floods, droughts, fires, and tornadoes have ravaged much of the country this year, and the pace of those disasters doesn't appear to be slowing down at all.

We know there are still those who don't believe in or understand global climate change. While we respect the rights of people to be blind if they choose to, we know what both the climate data and our own eyes and ears are telling us.

In short, we've believed for years that the climate is changing. We've seen it in our gardens, and we've noticed it in the trees and flowers and habits of animals we've observed over the last 20 years.

Just as there are those who deny that anything humans are doing or have done is causing these extreme, intense weather events, so too there are legislators who would attempt to use events like the Missouri and Oklahoma tornadoes as political fodder - like House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor did on Tuesday.

In short, we find that lack of compassion for his fellow Americans more disgusting than almost any image our previous topic might bring to mind - but this is not the time to discuss that either.

In times of crisis, there should be no political divisions that separate us. We are simply Americans, trying to help other Americans.

If you want to help, with anything from the floods in the Alabama to the tornados ravaging the Midwest, the best thing you can do is donate to organizations like the Red Cross, and their Spring 2011 disaster relief fund.

If you've got an animal that needs help, or one you've found, who is looking for its people, we recommend contacting Noah's Wish, an organization committed to helping animals and their owners during times of crisis.

If you know someone who was recently in the tornadoes or floods, we recommend going to safeandwell.org and registering your friend as "OK". You can also search for missing loved ones there.

Regardless of what you believe about global climate change, its effects are quite obvious - and terrifying - already.

There is a time for politics, and a time to step up and help our neighbors, no matter what their party affiliations are.

We hope you step up yourself today, and leave the politics behind.

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda

If you live in Nebraska, Florida, Virginia, or anywhere else in the country, you might see some headlines today about a special election in New York, to fill a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

We can understand that you might not think this race has much to do with you - and we don't entirely disagree. A simple mid-cycle replacement race for a single seat in the House shouldn't mean all that much. It shouldn't - but it does.

To start with, the 26th Congressional District of New York was vacated in February of this year when the married, conservative, Republican congressman was discovered to have e-mailed shirtless pictures of himself to a woman he met online. By itself, that incident would be just another unfortunate black mark on the reputation of a political party that continues to claim - laughably, at this point - that its members are more ethical or moral than members of any other political party.

That was only the beginning of this story, though.

Three candidates entered the race for this now-open House seat; a Democratic candidate, a Republican candidate, and a Tea Party candidate (who had, at different times in his life, been both a Republican and a Democrat). Even with three candidates, the political makeup of the district is so heavily Republican, it should have been a cake walk for nearly any solidly Republican candidate to pick up the open seat.

"Should have been" is the key. The other big key to this race may yet prove to be what the Republican candidate said that she would do to Medicare, if she were elected.

In short, she made it clear she would enact the plan put forward initially by Michigan GOP Representative Paul Ryan - a plan that would get rid of Medicare as it exists now, and replace it with a voucher program. That voucher program would force the elderly to try to get private insurance when they're over the age of 65 - but they'd get a voucher, which isn't worth the paper its printed on when no insurance company worth it's stock will take a 65-year-old with pre-existing conditions.

As Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight.com noted on Monday, it's easy to draw some early conclusions from this contest - and many pundits have. However, the unique characteristics make it unusually difficult to forecast with any certainty who will pick up the most votes when the polls close later today.

Unlike Nate, we're willing to go out on a limb and declare who will likely be the biggest losers in this special election, no matter what the vote tallies are: the Republican Party.

The Tea Party candidate has virtually no chance of winning. He began the race with about 25% of the potential vote in early polls. He's now down to 12% in polling and is continuing a downward trend. Unless the election is somehow a massive landslide for the Republican candidate - which, based on polling, is a highly unlikely outcome - this special election will have been fought over a topic that forms the basis of the GOP's 2012 campaign strategy.

Even if the Republican candidate wins by a slim margin, this issue will have proven exactly where the GOP's political weak points are - with more than a few months for Democratic strategists to refine their attacks before the 2012 campaign season really heats up. If the Democratic candidate wins, the Democrats will win a long-time Republican seat and weaken the GOP hold over the House by one more vote. If the Democratic candidate wins big, it will show just how dangerous and divisive the Tea Party truly could be in 2012.

No matter what the vote count is, the Republican Party won't come out of this special election unscathed - an outcome we warned was likely to happen one day, if the old-fashioned Republican moderates didn't stand up to the fanatical members of the Republican Party.

Just winning isn't enough. HOW one wins is as important as winning. Sometimes, maybe more important.

Thanks, Coach.

When we began looking at topics for today's commentary, at first we considered commenting on the continuing insanity of the 2012 GOP presidential primary field. After all, there were three announcements of consequence over the weekend from that laughably sad group of clownish figures.

On Saturday, conservative Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, announced he'd be running for President - and then promptly put both feet in his mouth on Sunday, all the way up to his ankles, when he made a major mistake on the subject of Israel and Palestine.

Meanwhile, one of the men primarily responsible for the economic policies that created the Great Recession, former George W. Bush budget director and current Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, announced Sunday morning that he's chosen not to run for the GOP's 2012 nomination. Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty officially announced the opposite - that he IS entering into the 2012 GOP primary race.

Still, the subject that kept coming up was the announcement by University of Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne that Husker baseball coach Mike Anderson and his staff had been let go.

As we've mentioned on occasion, all of our staff has different yet long-standing emotional ties to Husker sports. One of us even graduated from the University, in Lincoln. Paul draws HuskerNutz year-round, and we all wear our Husker red, no matter where we're living. Our web guru, Shawn, was even the Executive Producer of Husker Sports Radio, at one time. He once took an opportunity to swing the bat at Coach Anderson's pitching during "Media Day" batting practice - and Coach A. was mildly impressed.

All this may be true - but we can't fault A.D. Osborne for making the choice he did.

We respect Coach Anderson and the entire Husker baseball coaching staff, but running college athletics these days is a business in many ways. Anyone who argues otherwise isn't being honest with themselves or with you.

Running any business successfully means making certain benchmarks. In college baseball, that means a coach has to take his team to the College World Series in Omaha if he expects to hang onto his position long-term.

As we've often reminded others, college athletics is significantly more challenging than professional athletics in some ways. In college, it's not just a player's ERA or number of home runs that matter. Their GPA numbers count too - and on that front, Coach A. continued to knock it out of the park, all the way to the end of his career at Nebraska. Under Coach Anderson and the Nebraska baseball coaching staff, 72 players earned academic All-Big 12 honors, including 15 players this year, a record for the entire league. Coach Anderson and his staff demanded excellence from their players, on and off the field, and they usually got it.

Admittedly, with changes in the MLB draft and college baseball over the last five years, college baseball coaches have had a harder time than ever keeping star players from leaving school for the allure of the big leagues - a problem that also plagued Coach Anderson. Still, when the announcement was made over the weekend, there were no excuses from Coach A. and his staff - and that didn't surprise us at all.

Mike Anderson and his staff have been a class act for nearly a decade. They did a great job teaching, coaching, and getting Nebraska fans excited about baseball again, especially in the early years of Anderson's tenure.

As they head out of Hawks Field at Haymarket Park one last time, in our hearts, we're giving them one last round of applause, in true Husker tradition.

Friday Funday: It's The End Of The World - But We Feel Fine

As you may have already heard, a fanatical far, far, FAR right wing extremist in California has decreed that tomorrow (or possibly, yesterday or a few days ago, if you don't check your e-mail every day) is supposed to be the end of the world.

For a million little reasons, we're just not buying into the hype today.

For starters, even if you’re Christian and even if you believe in the rapture (or this particular model of the End of Days – there are many ), there are many different Bible verses that - as clearly as any other christian bible verse - lay out that the second coming will occur when pretty much no one is paying attention.

Since you're reading this, and since we put today's Daily Felltoon together, we're pretty sure we're all paying attention - which we think at least gives us all partial credit for saving the world today. So... Mazel Tov and thanks to you! Good job.

There's also the question brought up by a discussion of our staff members earlier this year: exactly WHEN is the end of the world supposed to occur?

Most Western media sources we've looked through seem to say it's supposed to happen on Saturday. But as far as we can tell, the insane maniac/devout fool who began this rumor thinks the rapture will happen at exactly midnight, Jerusalem time.

That puts the rapture square in the middle of the afternoon for basically all of the Western Hemisphere.

On FRIDAY afternoon - not Saturday.

Those of you that have to do end-of-week reports may be rejoicing at that news - but we really think you should hold onto your paperwork and hold off on doing your best Keith Olbermann impersonation. After all, the rapture may be tomorrow, but the end of the world isn't technically until October 21st, according to the California extremist.

Whatever you believe, we hope you live life every day as though there won't be another.

For all of us - like former Nebraska teacher and poet Bill Kloefkorn - that will eventually be the case.

Bill was a teacher, a poet, and a lover of words, all things that we admire and respect. He loved life, and enjoyed humor as much as anyone. We're fairly sure he'd agree with our advice, cliché though it is. He passed away Thursday, and we send our condolences to his friends, family, and all who knew him.

Not a single one of us truly knows when we're going to go, whether we get hit by a bus, or get yanked into the clouds by the rapture. [We're not Baptists, and at least one of us is Catholic, so we're pretty sure the folks who think the world is ending this weekend also think we're all going to Hell.]

We hope that, if nothing else comes from this non-event event, it at least brings to your attention that pithy, if not trite phase, to live life like you were dying. It may be a cliché, but someday that phrase will actually be correct for all of us.

We hope it's not this weekend though, as we have so many more things we'd like to experience in this world.

If we're wrong, and the rapture happens later today - or Saturday, midnight local time if you're in Jerusalem - we may be a bit delayed in getting out Monday's edition. Then again, since there will be fewer people on the internet and most of the internet techies we know are also likely to still be around, we could even get finished with our work early.

Guess we'll have to wait until Monday to see how it all turns out.

We hope you enjoy your weekend. Live a little. Or live a lot, if you get the time.

Cleaning Up

It's nearing the end of the legislative session for 2011, at least for the statehouses in Lincoln and Des Moines.

We've been watching both state legislatures carefully this year, as examples of what to do, what not to do, and what can't - or shouldn't - be done at the state level.

In Nebraska, in spite of the ranting and raving of far too many on the political right that ANY increase in taxes would be too much, more revenue has been found. In fact, legislators in Nebraska overrode the governor's veto in order to ask Nebraskans to spend five bucks more a year for state park entry fees. The threat of a second veto override also cowed Nebraska's governor into signing a larger roads funding bill than had initially been expected.

Both bills gained bipartisan support, which surprised many observers from both sides of the aisle.

In Iowa, the theme of this year's legislative session seems to have been partisanship.

The legislature there remains at a standstill, on many key issues, with neither side willing to budge. Technically, the Iowa legislature is now past its original scheduled ending date. Most legislative staffers have already been released, as most people did not expect the session to continue this long. Still, three key bills have yet to be passed: the school funding bill, a proposed tax relief bill, and the Iowa state budget.

Extreme gridlock notwithstanding, we have seen significant compromise on some issues in Iowa this session.

Iowa's congressional redistricting efforts went extremely well, considering the state will be losing one member of its U.S. house delegation. Of course, Iowa also had the foresight over 25 years ago to install a nonpartisan redistricting process - so that issue was really a non-issue, even before this year's legislature met.

In comparison, Nebraska, which is losing no seats, appears to have its congressional redistricting headed to Federal court - incurring unnecessary expense for taxpayers - due to a highly partisan and illogical redrawing of the Nebraska congressional map.

Neither state legislature passed many bills this year, though not for lack of trying. Both states also passed some legislation which, in our opinion, is both questionable and offensive. Regardless of our opinion on the content of those bills, we think it's obvious what worked in both legislative bodies this year: compromise.

It's also obvious what didn't work, for both state legislatures: extremism, primarily from the political right.

In Nebraska, the insane insistence that no more revenue could be had - when it's obvious that was not the case - was a stupid, petty, and ultimately failed strategy by those who claim to be fiscally responsible. Their hypocrisy on that issue has now become disgustingly clear.

In Iowa, the hypocrisy continues, with a state strapped for funds, and a governor and Republican-majority house still insisting on massive tax cuts for businesses -  while not allowing for any growth of budgets for schools. If no budget deal is made before Iowa's new fiscal year begins in July, the Republican governor and Republican House of Representatives (which is responsible for all spending bills), could be responsible for closing Iowa state parks on the Fourth of July, as well as the layoffs of thousands of workers during the height of summer.

Attempting to hold back a state's fiscal liabilities while not collecting enough revenue for its responsibilities is akin to trying to hold back the ocean while trying to hold down every grain of sand on a beach.

Doing so will only make you look foolish - and ultimately leave you all wet.

This Ain't Gonna Be Pretty

Like it or not - and there are many people, including us at times, who don't - the U.S. really has only two major political parties. We'll agree that there are many other minority parties, including the Tea Party. However, like the old Big 8, American politics is dominated by two groups that take most of the energy, money, and attention, while everyone else is mostly relegated to the sidelines

That binary alignment in American politics often leads Americans to act more like fans of a  particular sports team than citizens involved in solving the problems of our society, something we've decried many times before.

Today though, we're going to take the sporting approach for a reason.

Everyone knows the best sports match-ups happen when you have two teams who put their best players on the field - and the players on each team are a good match for their opponent's strengths and weaknesses.

Unfortunately, the match-ups we're beginning to see take shape for the 2012 political season are nothing like that. Frankly, for one of the two major political parties, they're embarrassing.

Take Newt Gingrich, for example.

A one-time power player for the Republican Party during the 1990's, Newt has returned to attempt to run for President in 2012. Even before he announced he was officially running this year, it was clear that Newt's stats would never match up well with the current GOP fan base.

For a party that continues to attempt to claim the mantle of family values party, Newt's record is a disaster. Three marriages, multiple affairs - including his affair with his high school teacher (who became his first wife), and serving divorce papers on ill women twice in his life make it incredibly unlikely that Newt will be the GOP's chosen star next year.

It hasn't helped that Newt's been blasting nearly everyone lately, Democrats and Republicans alike, on both sides of the field.

Another major GOP star, Mitt Romney, increasingly looks like this year's Wrong Way Corrigan.

Romney proudly held a position formerly held by most of the GOP, that Medicare for all Americans was unacceptable and socialist, but that universal health care with an individual mandate (which allows private health insurance companies to still be part of the system), was a great idea. In fact, Romney built his signature political achievement as Massachusetts governor on that idea.

Of course, Mitt is now running from his own healthcare plan as fast as his political legs will carry him. Don't even ask what Mr. Romney's position on abortion is. His answer will likely depend on which end of the political field he's running toward.

All this while the Democratic nominee for President in 2012 is the current President, who is primarily responsible for preventing an apocalyptic economic collapse (so far), who created or saved more jobs in 27 months than his predecessor did in eight years, and under whose watch and leadership the most wanted terrorist in American history was eliminated.

Some of our readers may think we're reveling in these potential matchups. They'd be wrong.

We'd rather see the two best individuals - evenly matched - debate fairly, cleanly, and solidly, and have the best candidate win.

Right now, it appears one side is bringing in the pros, while the other side is bringing in the rejected players from the local high school YMCA team.

We'd hide our eyes if we weren't so afraid we might miss something.

Pigeon Governor

As we discussed yesterday, there are those in the state of Nebraska who are currently overreaching, politically. Sadly, they're displaying the kind of blind partisanship that can transition seamlessly into "political corruption." While that description applied to yesterday's discussion of redistricting, it also applies to today's subject matter - the ongoing war against workers' rights.

Those who know the current Nebraska Republican Party and its recent history - that of attempting to forcibly pass anti-worker legislation in violation of the state constitution - also likely recognize the methods of its de facto leader, Governor Dave Heineman.

To us, Heineman's methods resemble those of a pigeon.

In some workplaces, there are leaders who are sometimes known as "pigeon bosses." That title refers to a person in a nominal leadership position who swoops in after most of the hard work is done, craps all over the project, ruffles everyone's feathers, and then flies away to go screw something else up.

On Monday, Governor Heineman shook his proverbial tailfeathers at a bill that has drawn passionate debate from legislators who favor workers' rights as well as from those who oppose workers' rights. The debates on that bill, LB397, have often been ugly.

Even in the face of contentious discussion, for most of the last year, both Democratic and Republican legislators from across the state of Nebraska have worked together in an attempt to update the rules governing the state labor court that is the Nebraska Commission on Industrial Relations.

It's been difficult to find an effective and fair way through this problem. Yet, the hard-fought compromise bill to update the CIR recently won unanimous first-round approval - a truly rare achievement in our politically polarized country.

On Monday, Governor Heineman swooped into the public discussion of the bill and insisted that if the changes he wants to be made to the labor bill aren't made in the second round, he's going to veto the bill and scuttle the whole process.

State Senator Steve Lathrop, who has worked on the bill from the beginning, noted that Governor Heineman has not participated in the development of the bill at all.

As we've said many, many, many times before, the soul of good government is compromise. It's clear from the first-round vote tally that the current bill governing the update to the CIR is a good compromise.

In our current American political environment, where nearly everything is hyper-polarized, we believe it's a wise idea for any leader who wishes to leave a positive legacy to identify areas where legitimate compromise is being made - and then have the wisdom to stand back and let that compromise occur.

Or, as any real Nebraskan would say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. On the update of the CIR, we think it's quite obvious that the legislature has already fixed the issue - meaning Governor Heineman needs to fly away, and leave the issue alone.

Pay Attention, Nebraskans!

In a state with a history of non-partisan and bipartisan actions, and a legislature that is supposedly non-partisan, you might think that Nebraska would be more likely to avoid partisan gerrymandering. You might also think, in this non-partisan atmosphere, that questionably legal maneuvers by the political party with the largest majority in the state legislature would never happen.

Unfortunately this year, you'd be wrong.

If you're unfamiliar with the concept of legislative redistricting, the idea is a simple one to understand. After the U.S. Census, every ten years, legislative district lines are supposed to be redrawn, so that each district has a roughly equal population to all the other districts within a state.

The usual political approach for most state legislatures when redistricting comes around is quite simple; keep things almost exactly the same as they were before the census. Their political motives are highly understandable. When political winds shift, as they always eventually do, political payback can be hell. Further, if a political party overreaches during redistricting, they can end up in Federal Court – and appear like they're trying to cheat and stack the deck against their political rivals.

Still, some political parties do attempt to gerrymander, to redraw the boundaries of an electoral district in an obviously corrupt way, to create a specific kind of political advantage.

Surprisingly, this year in Nebraska, the state Republican Party is attempting to do just that - and they are angering constituents from border to border.

To begin, the Nebraska Republican party is attempting to cut out the area near Offutt Air Force base, including Bellevue - which is on the EASTERN edge of Omaha - and move it into the district that includes the capitol city of Lincoln. This makes no logical geographic sense, since most of Omaha lies between the Offutt/Bellevue area and Lincoln. Further, most residents of Bellevue and Offutt know where they live - in the suburbs of Omaha, nearly an hour from Lincoln.

The gerrymandering doesn't stop there.

The Republican's proposed redistricting also includes splitting Alliance, a town that has traditionally had problems with being spilt by irregular legislative lines. Those lines were fixed a decade ago - but now are threatened by the redistricting plan backed by the Nebraska Republican Party. Nebraska City, Hastings, Chadron, Columbus, and all of Custer County face similar unorthodox splits if the Republican-backed plan is crammed down the throats of Nebraskans.

Even an expert in redistricting, UNL Professor Michael Wagner, says the proposal before the Nebraska legislature makes no sense.

We understand that BOTH parties have engaged in this type of political corruption before, and they will likely do so again. Gerrymandering is 200 years old in 2012 and we doubt that term or its corresponding action will disappear anytime soon. That kind of corruption is still so bad, sixteen states with a history of gerrymandering and election violations - including Florida - must have their redistricting plans approved by the Justice Department before they can move forward into the 2012 elections.

Even so, we think the actions of Nebraska Republicans this year are so outrageous, even the most distracted Nebraskan should sit up and take notice.

When even loyal partisan voters are being jerked around by their own party's representatives in the legislature, the question that comes to our mind is simple and direct: If your legislators don't even care enough about you to know where you live, how can they be trusted to make laws to protect you?

Send in The Clowns

As our longtime readers know, when appropriate, we give kudos to those politicians and other figures who deserve them - and we excoriate those who have also earned our ire.

We also fully admit - while we're hard on our national politicians, we usually judge Nebraska politicians along a steeper scale than we do politicos from virtually any other place.

We also have a tendency to not want to go out on a limb, in general, when calling political contests. We've berated others for calling elections over before they've begun - so we won't do that today.

What we will say is this: We're pretty sure of the outcome of at least one race for U.S. Senate next year - and you can thank the Tea Party for that.

In case you missed it, the extremist far-right wing group, the Tea Party Express let it leak yesterday that the first official candidate they'll support for 2012 is Republican Jon Bruning. Bruning is one of three Republicans to have formally announced their intention to compete with Senator Ben Nelson for the U.S. Senate seat Nelson already occupies.

We can understand the possibility that you missed the non-announcement announcement on Wednesday. Not only was it one of the worst-kept secrets of the infant 2012 political season, but for those people interested in politics, the announcement only seemed to be a surprise to people outside the Cornhusker state.

We find it infinitely amusing that a foundering fledgling political group, that claims to be more focused on fiscal responsibility than either the Democratic or Republican parties, would choose Mr. Bruning as the first candidate of the 2012 season they'll support - on the same day that former Berkshire executive David Sokol resigned from the Bruning campaign, as the finance chairman, for unethical and irresponsible actions at Berkshire.

Of course, if your memory is like that of many Americans, let us remind you that the Tea Party Express is the same group responsible for Christine "I'm not a witch" O'Donnell, Joe "Free speech for me but not for you" Miller, and Sharron "I'll take Second Amendment remedies if I don't win" Angle.

We'll admit - we've praised Attorney General Bruning in the past for things he's done well, and docked him for things he's done wrong. In general, though, while we're not a fan of many of his political positions, we do think he'd have more potential if he would simply choose to be himself, and push away the insanity of those like the Tea Party Express.

As long as Republicans like Bruning continue to side with the insane wing of the GOP, their futures will continue to look like the approval ratings of the Tea Party: embarrassingly low and falling fast.

Keeping Promises

There are a host of different topics filling the headline spots of newspapers today. There's almost any kind of story you could want, from the separation of actor and former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from his wife, journalist Maria Shriver; to the idea that crazy liberals in Southern Arizona are attempting to split the state to get away from the crazy conservatives. There's even hard news, like the report released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation that agrees the Republican plan to change Medicare would really destroy Medicare - and leave 44 million more Americans (mostly elderly) uninsured.

The one story we're seeing very little of is a report on what President Barack Obama did on Tuesday.

It would be completely understandable, after nearly two weeks where the President has addressed and put to rest a whole host of major and minor issues, from the insanity that was birthism, to ordering the successful killing of the number one terrorist in the world, that he might take a day off.

Instead, the President traveled halfway across the nation to the Texas border town of El Paso. During the hottest part of the day, under the glaring sun, he gave a lengthy, detailed, and thoughtful address dealing with a political issue that is so volatile, neither major political party has enough courage to fully face the issue: immigration.

We're not going to rehash the President's speech here. You can read it for yourself, or watch the video of it - which we recommend if immigration is at all an issue you feel passionate about.

What we want to point out today is this: in less than two-and-a-half years on the job, this current President is not only NOT slowing down, nor is he losing focus. He is actually gaining momentum and picking up speed on his agenda.

When Senator Barack Obama began campaigning for the Presidency like most candidates, he made promises. By the time he won the Presidential election, Politifact had counted over 500 promises that he had made to attempt to change things.

According to that same organization, including promises he has yet to fulfill, items he's compromised on, items that are still in the works, and those that have been stalled by the GOP, President Obama has either completed or is working on 464 of 508 promises.

He's only left two items on the proverbial table that he hasn't begun to address.

Remember - he hasn't even been in office two-and-a-half years.

You may not like our current President, and you may not agree with his methods. You may believe he's too liberal - or that he's not liberal enough.

The one thing that can't legitimately be said about Barack Obama is that he's lazy. Very few Presidents have ever attempted so much in such a short time, save for some of our founding fathers, and both Presidents Roosevelt.

Even if you are a person who disagrees with President Obama on nearly everything, we hope you give the man some respect for what he has attempted so far.

He has set a standard of action for politicians of both parties that will be hard to match in the future. We can only hope to see more wise individuals from across the spectrum step up in the future and attempt to meet the marks Mr. Obama has already set.

Time To Fly

We're aware you've likely heard the dire prediction put out by the Wall Street Journal last weekend, that the college graduating class of 2011 will be the most indebted class to ever graduate. Just as spring and the month of May bring bouquets of flowers and bunches of events, so too does graduation bring out those negative nabobs who always want to rain on everyone else's shining moment.

Today's Daily Felltoon and Commentary are a positive message for our readers who are graduating this month - or if you know someone who is, we ask you to forward our words on to them with our congratulations and best wishes.

There is NEVER an easy time to graduate and move into the world of full-time work, despite what some pundits would try to get you to believe. The truth about 2011 is that those who are graduating are entering the best job market in many years. Even while we acknowledge that things are looking up economically, we also are mindful of the fact that the American economy has a long way to go before it's as strong and robust as we'd like it to be.

We fully admit: our country has fallen down on its side of the social contract that has been pushed on multiple generations of Americans. The prototypical American scholastic agreement has been that if a person goes to college and gets a degree, they can all get great jobs. That in turn, is supposed to give the graduate an income level where they can afford things like a house, a car, and kids. Unfortunately, over the last few years, that agreement has been shown to now be the exception, and not the rule.

We don't fault those who are graduating for the failure to create and sustain jobs that pay fairly and decently here in the U.S. That's the fault of our politicians and so-called business leaders, and we'll make no excuses for their failures in that arena.

More than anything, we simply want the class of 2011 to understand that no matter what anyone does or says, the future you have before you is yours to make, for the most part.

Nothing is guaranteed, no job, no graduate school, no career path, no relationship. You'll likely have a few moments soon where you feel like suddenly there's no ground below you, and you're scrambling madly, as though you're in an old Tex Avery or Looney Toons cartoon.

Trust us when we say this - nearly everyone who has gone before you in all of history, has had these same moments.

The question isn't:  Are you going to fall down? You will, of course.

The question is: Are you going to fall with class, and pull out a parachute from nowhere, like Bugs or the Roadrunner always seem to do? Or are you going to fall like Yosemite Sam or Wile E. Coyote, flailing, begging, and crying the whole way?

Keep your head about you, remember what you've learned, and also remember this - you've made it this far in life. Not everyone makes it to this point. There is a reason you've succeeded in life so far. It's mainly because you know how to fall with style and land successfully.

In case you didn't know, that's truly what flying is all about.

Relative Advice

We hope you had a good weekend with your Mom, or maybe some relatives - and we hoped you had some good discussions with them too. From coast to coast, and everywhere in between, when folks haven't been talking about the death of Bin Laden this past week, it seems like the subject of gas prices have often elbowed in to fill the void.

Not surprisingly, President Obama already pivoted back to the issue of gas prices in his weekly address on Saturday. At about the same time he spoke, most of us noticed a drop in the price of gas of about a nickel a gallon, on average.

While we're still glad that President Obama and his team got Bin Laden and have continued the assault on Al Qaeda-aligned forces, we agree with the conventional wisdom on next year's Presidential election. The 2012 contest won't likely be focused on issues of security or foreign policy as much as it will be issues of domestic financial stability, growth, and the price of fuel.

In fact, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com reiterated those facts about the economy and the presidential race in early March, and again about ten days ago.

For Americans who often display the collective memory retention of a gnat, we remind you that President George H.W. Bush won a significant military victory over a then-dangerous Saddam Hussein in 1991. Because the economy was still suffering more than Americans were willing to endure, Bush lost solidly to the then mostly unknown Bill Clinton in 1992.

As Clinton himself might say about next year's race, it's still the economy, stupid.

While five dollar per gallon gas is looking less likely now, most Americans won't see a significant decrease in the price at the pump right away. Still, experts say gas prices are likely to continue their downward trend - for a short time anyway.

For some politicians focused blindly on the 2012 Presidential election, we think it's far too early to be screaming about the price of gas now as a measure for who will win next year.

There are always those who believe the price of gas is too high, no matter what its price is, just as there are those who think that Bin Laden is really having kebobs with Elvis, or that Barack Hussein Obama is really a secret Kenyan muslim.

There will always be those who believe what they want to believe, regardless of the facts.

That the price of fuel in the United States will be going down soon isn't a myth. That much is an educated guess, based on statistical facts. All the same, the price of a gallon of go-juice for your car isn't likely to hit 99¢ a gallon again in our lifetimes.

The price of gasoline WILL likely drop a few cents this week, no matter where you are - but whether that matters to you is all relative to factors like whether you've got a job, or a job that pays enough.

Those political pundits who think a raise or drop in the price of gas of a nickel or a dime now is going to swing the election decisively for or against Barack Obama nineteen months from now are as deluded as their friends in the "Birther" and "Deather" clans.

Friday Funday: Thanks, Mom.

As usual, Friday has arrived, and there are a whole host of topics we'd like to address: the failure of the anti-worker lobbies to severely weaken Nebraska's CIR, for example. Or the heavy-handed attempt by Republicans to skew Nebraska's congressional redistricting - and in the process, leave one of the U.S. military's most important assets, Offut Air Base, with Congressional representation that will not be able to properly address its concerns.

Today is Friday, however, and around here, that means we try to have a little bit more fun, and focus a little bit less on the political issues of the day.

For those of you who don't know (or you forgot), this Sunday is Mother's Day, 2011, in the United States. Other countries celebrate this holiday on other days, but we'll be sending gifts or good thoughts to our Moms, wherever they may be.

One of us actually is a Mom - so we're wishing Amy a very happy Mother's Day right now.

Most Moms are pretty incredible people, especially in today's America. For example, most American Moms have at least two jobs - the one they do for pay, and being a Mom. Some have three or four jobs right now.

These days, more than a few Moms take care of things they rarely were expected to when we were growing up. Coaching little league sports, for example, is a common thing many Moms do these days.

Our web guru Shawn uses his Mother for extra memory - but not for his computer. For example, he'll call her when he forgets the birthday of a relative - or needs to know (again) how to get a grass stain out of a new pair of shorts. [Of course, she also uses Shawn as free 24 hour computer tech support, so we suppose there's plenty of give and take there.]

Some Moms aren't really Moms at all, just mother figures to certain lucky individuals who needed a Mom and didn't have one.

Even if a person has a difficult relationship with their Mom, she at least brought that person into the world - so some credit is due there as well.

For all the things our Mothers do for us now, and have done for us in the past, we have to thank them dearly.

We hope this weekend, if you're in the U.S. - or more importantly, if your Mom is - you at least give her a call, if you haven't gotten her a nice gift. If you're financially challenged, you might do something nice for her instead - like mow her lawn or vacuum her floors.

And if your Mom has passed away, we hope you at least think of her, and thank her in spirit.

Happy Mothers Day!

Squeezing The Good Out Of Life

For most of our lives, Nebraska has generally been a live-and-let-live kind of state. It's been the kind of place where we want our politicians to be fiscally conservative - but on social issues, we'd just as soon they stay out of our lives.

With these facts in mind, it's with some shame that we also have to acknowledge two short-sighted groups who aren't acting like real Nebraskans at all.

The first group is the anti-abortion people who continue to try and force their idea of so-called "smaller government" into our bedrooms and inside our bodies. We've discussed their true nature at length before, including why they are truthfully not "pro-life", but rather are "anti-choice."

The second embarrassing group is those Nebraska state legislators who are obviously more concerned with pandering for votes from the anti-choice crowd than seeing to the needs of their constituents.

In case you missed it, the conservative-when-it-suits-him state Sen. Tony Fulton followed the lead of other narrow-minded lawmakers on Tuesday by cramming through some of his pet legislation onto the floor of the legislature at the last moment.

His proposed bill, LB521, would ban a procedure known as telemedicine abortions from being allowed in Nebraska. It's now up for a full vote of the Unicameral.

In general, we're not in favor of remote medicine if the option of a live physician is available. But sometimes, that's simply not possible.

As long-time Nebraska residents know, ours is a big state, with lots of open spaces between some of our smaller towns. Many of our smaller towns these days don't even have a doctor.

With the advent of distance medicine - what the proposed bill calls telemedicine - some smaller Nebraska towns have begun to see the promise of non-emergency, quick medical care being available in their towns again, through multi-purpose telemedicine clinics. Such proposals to add care facilities have been discussed recently by several groups, including Planned Parenthood.

It's likely though, that if this bill passes, those plans will never be more than just plans - and once again, rural Nebraska towns will be left at an even further medical disadvantage.

We understand that the topic of abortion is one that brings about strong emotions. We remind you once again, abortion continues to be a legal medical procedure in the United States. Anti-choice groups are well aware of that fact. Instead of working within the system to decrease the number of women who have unwanted pregnancies, they persist in foisting legislation on us that makes it more and more difficult for a woman to choose the option of SAFE, LEGAL abortions, should she choose to do so. One suspects that if the anti-choice crowd is ever successful in passing a nationwide abortion ban, the next thing they will go after is the availability of artificial birth control.

We can't understand the blind hatred and myopic focus of many in the anti-choice cabal. They would deny a better way to deliver medical care to their fellow Nebraskans who live in rural areas, just so that they can restrict the choices of others in the same way they've chosen to restrict their own choices. By that logic, vegans should also be able to restrict what the rest of us eat - an idea that we find abhorrent.

Nebraska has used the state slogan, "The Good Life" for many, many years - and most of the time, we tend to agree that it's a good place to live.

However, when some of our fellow citizens want to strangle the choices of their neighbors due to their own fanatical beliefs - and when many of our legislators are willing to help them pull tight those strings - we wonder how much longer we're really be able to call it the good life.

Out On A Limb

We don't really think it's a reach of any kind to say that the government of the United States, as well as many Americans, do not trust the government of Pakistan.

They have good reason. The most wanted terrorist in the world was discovered, captured and killed less than three days ago in a fortress that dwarfed the houses of his neighbors, that was built specifically for him. It was in a suburban area of one of Pakistan's largest cities that also happens to be home to a large contingent of retired Pakistani military and intelligence officers, a stone's throw from Pakistan's version of West Point.

To say that in Bin Laden's neighborhood, town, or region, there was no one who knew that he lived there is stretching credulity farther than even the most gullible person could withstand.

Many current and former intelligence personnel have said - some for years now - that Bin Laden wasn't holed up in a cave in the Waziristan border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Even a group of college geographers predicted - with surprising accuracy - where Osama Bin Laden was hiding back in 2009.

Yet, officials of both the current and previous governments of Pakistan insisted that they had no knowledge of the location of Mr. Bin Laden.

Leon Panetta, current CIA chief, said in an interview on Tuesday that U.S. cooperation with Pakistan on the Bin Laden takedown didn't really even exist, because of the lack of trust between the U.S. and Pakistan.

This lack of trust in Pakistan - a nominal ally in Southern Asia - stretches across both major political parties in the U.S. It's also hastened the call by some U.S. lawmakers for President Obama to make a rapid retreat of all forces from Afghanistan, and the Middle East in general.

We're well aware of the sacrifices made by Americans, and by other countries that have helped and supported the U.S. in it's military and diplomatic efforts in that region of the world. We'd certainly love to see our American service members back in the U.S. sooner, rather than later.

All this may lead you, dear reader, to think we also support an immediate and rapid withdrawal of American forces.

You'd be wrong.

Much as we wish it were true, just because Osama Bin Laden is dead doesn't mean the terrorist organization he began, Al Qaeda, is also dead. Most Americans also feel Al Qaeda isn't gone - and we trust their lack of faith on this issue, as much as we trust the opinion of terrorism experts who agree with them.

As we've said a million times, anything worth doing is worth doing well.

That includes UN-doing things that were done poorly when they were began. Leaving the Afghanistan/Pakistan region should be done carefully and correctly - much as our nominal allies, the Pakistanis, continue to test both our relationship and our national patience.

Mission Actually Accomplished

It shouldn't surprise anyone today that we're going to talk about one of the largest stories in the media in quite some time - the death of the terrorist mastermind, Osama Bin Laden.

There are as many rumors floating around today as facts about the killing of Bin Laden, so we will guide you today, as always, through the gossip, and directly to the facts.

The group of CIA-led black-ops service members that actually went into Pakistan and completed this mission are people very few will likely ever know the identities of. Yet they deserve our deepest gratitude and thanks for removing a very twisted and evil man from the Earth. The thanks of Americans, and truthfully, people around the world, go out to everyone involved with the military and intelligence operation that removed Bin Laden from this Earth.

For a man who supported some of the most misogynistic strains of fundamentalism on earth, we find it sadly fitting that Bin Laden attempted to use his own wife as a shield in his final moments. Truly, he was a coward to the end.

Bin Laden wasn't just a symbolic leader for many of the world's most dangerous terrorists. He was also a financier for terrorists and causes that spread fear throughout the world. Those organizations and individuals who relied on his blood money may not be totally thrown into financial ruin - but their efforts to cause harm and destruction will likely suffer a severe setback, which we are also glad to see.

There are still a huge number of questions surrounding this event - and while we don't have all the answers, we believe some of those questions can and should be answered now.

Those who believe we simply should have bombed Bin Laden's known location into the stone age with remote control robots - or that we should have outsourced a dangerous operations like this to private contractors - should be silenced by the facts.

There were many reasons for "doing this the old-fashioned way", with human intelligence over a long period of time. For one thing, America has now recovered more high-value intelligence on Al-Qaeda in one highly planned surgical strike than we've ever gathered about Al-Qaeda over their entire existence.

For those who still insist the way our service members disposed of Bin Laden's body was odd, we say better study your Koran. If a body might be dug up or a gravesite defiled - as is likely the case for someone who other terrorists may see as a martyr - that body should be given the proper rites (as the U.S. did), and then be buried at sea. The burial also must happen within twenty-four hours of death.

For those who still defile the Muslim religion by saying Osama Bin Laden was a typical Musilm, we remind them that Bin Laden killed Muslims, Jews, Christians, and people of nearly every other faith, without bias. Most Muslims are glad he is dead. Osama Bin Laden was as much a member of the Muslim faith as the Westboro Baptist Church members are true christians - which is to say, not at all.

There are still a massive amount of things we do not know about this event - and many things we will never know.

For now, we think it's enough to note that this time, no spectacle on a ship, or "Mission Accomplished" banner was needed to tell the American people what we know.

The mission to kill Osama Bin Laden has been completed. As a nation it's time to look to our next task.

Problems And Solutions

[Today's commentary was compiled and written prior to the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death. We will likely address that topic tomorrow.]

Another work week has dawned, one that includes Congress actually doing more work, which may come as a shock to some, considering the schedule set by House Majority Leader John Boehner.

There are a large number of problems that Congress needs to deal with swiftly and firmly as they return, including the debt ceiling, tax breaks and the Federal budget.

In the spirit of a radio show hosted by a fellow member of the media in Lincoln, we're going to attempt to help the members of our readership heading back to work on Capitol Hill by not just addressing these problems - but giving solutions as well.

We think Warren Buffett said it best over the weekend that if Congress fails to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, their actions would be "most asinine". As Mr Buffett pointed out, “We’re a growing country, and we’re going to have a growing debt capacity." We all want America to grow stronger again - and yes, we are concerned about long-term debt. But that long-term debt was not created overnight, and it will not be solved overnight, as we and countless others have reminded everyone until we're nearly breathless.

The solution to the problem of the debt ceiling is simple: raise the debt ceiling. We have done it many other times before with no apocalyptic consequences. In fact, during the Clinton years we raised the debt ceiling AND managed to have a surplus by the time the decade ended. The alternative - NOT raising the debt ceiling - does have the possibility to cause massive disaster, as we've discussed previously. As others have also stated elsewhere, raising the debt ceiling is actually constitutional, as Section 4 of the 14th Amendment reads, “The validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned.” Finally, as a matter of national security, President Obama can technically ignore the debt ceiling, if he chooses to, with no significant consequences.

Assuming then, that we do raise the debt ceiling, that still leaves us with the problems of a Federal budget that needs more revenue, and gives far too many unnecessary tax breaks.

In the midst of a weekend that included a trip to the tornado ravaged areas of the South, a quick trip to Southern California, and the White House Correspondent's Dinner (also known colloquially in DC as "Nerd Prom"), the President found time to give his weekly radio, tv and internet address, where he touched on both of these problems.

While President Obama blasted the oil companies, he didn't do so for their having record profits, so much as he did for them having record profits while taking approximately four billion dollars last year in government welfare. They did so through subsidies, a policy where the government is supposed to use some of our tax dollars to support struggling industries.

No one who has even a rudimentary grasp of reality believes the oil and gas companies are struggling.

As President Obama pointed out, “When oil companies are making huge profits and you’re struggling at the pump, and we’re scouring the federal budget for spending we can afford to do without, these tax giveaways aren’t right,” Obama said. “They aren’t smart. And we need to end them.”

Democratic House & Senate members have already committed to demanding that we end those subsidies. Republican lawmakers have already said they'll defend the rich oil companies, while pump prices continue to climb above four dollars per gallon. We have to say, the Republican Party's position on this issue is appalling - but sadly not surprising, given their current leadership.

There are other subsidies, in the form of tax breaks, that we also think should be eliminated - like the Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich. Tax cuts are something we can afford when times are good, and our pockets are flush with money. That is not the case right now - and everyone knows it.

It is time to quit coddling the crybabies, and put back into our budgets the money we can no longer afford to give out to those who don't need it anyway. Doing so would move us significantly closer to solving both the problems of the Federal budget and wasteful tax breaks.