What Newt Leaves Behind...

If you were like many folks this past weekend, you were probably busy doing some Spring cleaning, or finalizing plans for upcoming events. Maybe you were at a car show - or, for some of you, going to the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, often self-deprecatingly called "Nerd Prom."

In case you missed the news in the midst of all those events, former 2012 GOP candidate for president, Newt Gingrich, has finally announced that he's leaving the race Wednesday, instead of Tuesday - which, for most people, doesn't mean a whole lot.

Perhaps it should, though.

Like it or not, Newt has been a force for dissent and self-destruction within the Republican Party during the GOP presidential primaries this past year. As one Washington pundit noted over the weekend, "To Gingrich, politics is war by other means."

Newt's attitude of politics as war has been obvious from the time he first really came on the national political scene. If any one politician has exemplified the modern Republican way of doing things, it's Newt, who really set the tone for the modern version of the GOP. In his first major political battle that gained any national attention back in 1990, he won in a very Karl Rovian way - 50% plus a handful of votes. When he became the Speaker of the House, he bullied his way to that position, too. Upon gaining power in the House, Newt used that power to browbeat, bludgeon, and bluster his way to claiming huge successes - just as he did in this year's GOP campaign, where he only won a single race.

His claims, though, have almost always been shallow and false. The truth is, Mr. Gingrich has always left a trail of massive failures, not the least of which was his shutdown of the Federal government in 1995. Newt's biggest legacy though, will be the way current Republicans in Congress and in state governments now regularly operate. That method is, frankly, like bullies, not in good faith as Republicans once operated, but as though every disagreement - even within their own party - were a battle to the death.

What has this delusional belligerence gained the Republican party?

To start with, a 2012 nominee for President that even Republican voters can't stand.

As journalist John Nichols pointed out last week, in the five Republican primary races held last week, between 33% and 43% of Republican primary voters picked someone other than Mitt Romney, even when they already knew Romney was going to be their candidate for President. In fact, in Pennsylvania, comparing the results from the uncontested Democratic primary to the number of votes in the contested Republican primary, President Obama got more votes than both Mr. Romney and Rick Santorum, combined. Unsurprisingly, all three men got more votes than Gingrich.

Of course, even when Republicans are getting trounced, modern party hacks never admit it. That too is a legacy of Newt Gingrich.

Current GOP House Speaker John Boehner made an excellent display of that kind of braggadocio and ignorance this past weekend, on one of the Sunday shows. Boehner tried to claim his most recent blasting of President Obama was simply Boehner's attempt to "help" the President make better decisions.

We'll admit - the President's remarks towards some Republicans over the weekend were not all that kind during the White House Correspondents' Dinner. However, they were meant as jokes with barbs, as is the usual custom at that event. The President even made some sharp self-depricating comments, showing that his comments were not meant to be serious. The difference between Mr. Boehner's comments and the President's is that everyone knew the President's comments were a joke. Mr. Boehner meant his comments to be serious.

Such obtuseness - or possibly, self-delusion - is also a legacy of Newt Gingrich.

In short, Newt is an ugly bully of a man, who can't seem to be honest, with himself or with anyone else. He's a monster, frankly, who's left a slime in American politics that will only likely disappear with time. While we're almost certain Mr. Gingrich is headed back into the swamp of lobbyists that pervades Washington, DC, he's left behind a template that far too many leaders in the modern Republican Party continue to follow - even though their current attitude, like his, seems to continue to lead them to failure.

Friday Funday: Blank Slate

While some members of our staff are already headed off for a weekend of fun and/or work, at least part of our staff has a completely open weekend ahead - and a blank slate isn't entirely a bad thing.

Still, there are quite a few important events going on this weekend, not the least of which is the White House Correspondents' Dinner, in Washington, DC. We also know that some of you - especially some of our Nebraska readers - will be trekking out to Beatrice, Nebraska and the Homestead National Monument of America this weekend.

In case you didn't know, the Homestead National Monument of America is a U.S. National Park, and the only one of it's kind, dedicated to celebrating the Homestead Act of 1862.

This weekend, there will be celebrations at the Monument in Beatrice to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Homestead Act, including the display of the original, four-page document that let thousands of Americans - and immigrant, soon-to-become Americans - stake their claim to land in the U.S.

Out of the millions of claims that were handed out to 1.6 million people over the course of the 125 year program, there's one claim, that 150 years later, still hasn't been properly addressed.

The land our government handed out didn't belong to the still young American nation in the first place.

It belonged to many Native American nations - nations that often, over the last 150 years, the U.S. government has lied to, stolen from, and cheated.

You can attempt to justify it anyway you want; the truth will remain the same. The U.S. Government paid the French Government for land the French government never rightfully owned. The U.S. took over land from the Spanish too, that Spain didn't really own either.

If you want to be honest, every time you see someone who is a proud Native American - and you are not - you should thank him or her profusely for not trying to evict you from this country because of the actions of your ancestors.

We're very glad, of course, that Native Americans do not kick us off of their land. In fact, we have to admit that we're pretty glad that so many immigrant Americans - including all of our ancestors - came to this country, settled here, and made the nation we have today.

We do wish our ancestors had asked proper permission from the people who were already living here - and we deeply apologize for the arrogant, ignorant, violent, obtuse, offensive, and stupid way that that our ancestors treated the already existing residents of America.

There is nothing we can do now that will ever fully pay back the many Native nations, for what happened to them. Sure - there are things we can do, like help to stop making things worse in towns like Whiteclay, Nebraska. But getting rid of the embarrassment in Whiteclay is the kind of action we should support because it is the right thing to do, not because we owe a debt to the first Americans.

What we can do this weekend, wherever we are, whatever we're doing, is to take the chance to wipe the slate clean, to start over again, remembering that we are all Americans.

How we act towards one another, and towards this land we are all responsible for, should - from this point forward - reflect who we all, as one nation, want to be.

We can't change the past. Hopefully, we can change the future - and make it better.

Contract With Evil

Wednesday was a busy day in political news around the country.

After winning five GOP primaries on Tuesday, Mitt Romney was already Etch A Sketch-ing his way towards positions different from those he's taken over the last year. The Republican National Committee reticently admitted Mitt is now their 2012 nominee - like it or not - and Newt Gingrich unofficially conceded to the former Massachusetts governor. Elsewhere, the conservative activist judges on the Supreme Court appeared ready to overlook judicial precedent and throw even more of their credibility out the window, by validating the racist SB1070 anti-immigrant law in Arizona.

College students in America were also protesting on Wednesday. This time, it was the fact that American student loan debt is now at the all-time, world record level of over $1 trillion dollars.

That's not a typo or an error. It's this: $1,000,000,000,000.

There was one more bit of related political theatre on Wednesday. House Republicans chose to change their previous position, follow Romney's recent flip-flop, and support extending current interest rates for student loans. Of course, in the process, the current GOP-led House did the only thing they know how to do. They took a political hostage.

The House position on allowing students to keep paying the current interest rate is that they're now in favor of keeping the rate low - so long as they can pay for it by stealing money that is supposed to be spent to implement the Affordable Care Act.

The position of the Wall Street-supported, corporatist Republicans is simple; students took out the debt, and regardless of what shackles were placed on them, or what obstacles have been put in their way, once a student has taken on that debt, the student - and their families, spouses, and even friends - should be forced to pay the debt back, no matter what. Their position matches, in a disgusting way, the methods used by the lowest drug dealers and terrorist hostage takers, and mirrors the position they put the country in on the payroll tax cut fight last year.

The banks behind the student loan monster don't even care if a student is dead. They want their money. Period. You see, to them, nothing is more sacred than a contract - so long as they are the beneficiaries.

Of course, they forget that the point of a student loan in the first place is a social contract with society.

No one, of sane mind, would go as far into debt as it takes to finish college today, without having an decent opportunity that the debt they will be incurring will result in a better life.  Frankly, we wholeheartedly agree: there is a societal cost we all must carry if we're going to make the barrier to having a decent middle class life - or better - be college or tech school, that nearly always requires taking out a student loan.

If society, through its schools, government, and student loan companies (which are really just banks by another name), doesn't do everything possible to help make the investment in our students valuable - and in fact, undermines the possibility of many of those students being able to repay the loans? Such a society - controlled far too much by the big banks - has already reneged on their part of the contract. Such a society may also have already sold part of its soul to demons and monsters.

Unfortunately for millions of Americans, that's where our society now is. The banks still want their money, whether the students are dead or alive - and our laws allow them to literally paw through the fiscal corpse of a dead person, and reach into their families' pockets.

This is what we should have expected, when we let the banks get between students and their education. That the demons are now crawling out of the small print and demanding what they think is theirs shouldn't surprise anyone.

Step Back From The Edge - Social Security Is Fine

Among the piles of oversimplifications and outright lies we observed our colleagues in the media foist upon the horse-brained masses Tuesday, one of the biggest false storylines was the whopper about Social Security and Medicare going completely bankrupt.

Whether the supposed date of Social Security and Medicare's demise was 2024, as the National Journal put it, or 2033, like ABC News had it, the fact of the matter is, both of them - and most of the major news sources - let their journalistic integrity fly off a cliff into the dump on this one.

There were a few in the media who got the stories on Social Security and Medicare generally right, including Sarah Kliff at the Washington Post Wonkblog, Travis Waldron at Think Progress, and Jon Walker at the Firedoglake blog.

The best explanation of why Social Security isn't in that much danger, though, was written by someone who isn't just a media colleague of ours. He's also a friend – and the one-time head of Marvel Productions – Rick Ungar.

Currently a freelance columnist, a regular contributor for Forbes, a radio host - and occasionally, when he gets bored, a lawyer - Rick nailed down the description of why the annual report released by the Social Security Trustees isn't the cataclysmic event that so many made it out to be. We highly recommend you read Rick's full column on the subject.

In short, what Ungar and others note is that Social Security - and in a similar way, Medicare - will not be "flat broke" around 2033, as we heard a right-wing blowhard say on the radio. In fact, if the Federal government does nothing, the U.S. Social Security system can continue to pay 100% of benefits to every potential recipient until some point around 2035. At that point, the government program will be able to pay 75% of benefits, for the foreseeable future - long after everyone reading this is dead.

As Rick Ungar specifically notes, when the bi-partisan Greenspan Commission fixed Social Security back in 1983, the intention was to keep funding the program through payroll taxes - also know as FICA taxes - that would include 90% of U.S. wage earners. The Greenspan Commission set a cap of $110,000, and everyone who earns less than that much pays 6.2% into the Social Security trust fund. After someone earns $110,000 in a single tax year, they no longer have to pay FICA taxes on the rest of their earnings.

That formula would have continued to work for America for the foreseeable future, if it weren't for the massive income disparity that's exploded in the U.S. since the early 1980s.

Admittedly, there are other factors that have weakened the health of the Social Security program, including the greater numbers of Baby Boomers retiring all at once, and a continued economic attack on better wages for workers in America. The Bush Recession also made a significant ding in the long-term solvency of the program.

The solution, though, isn't very complex. The original solution was mostly based on percentages - but where it failed was in setting a cap in actual dollars, when the rest of the formula was in percentages. If we fix the formula, and change the FICA cap to a percentage, Social Security will remain stable nearly forever. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has even had legislation pending - that has been held up by Republicans - that would raise the cap.

So faulty math pushing Social Security - and to a great degree, Medicare - off a cliff, really isn't the problem.

The real problem is that both the U.S. House and Senate would rather fight excitedly over piddling non-problems, like bratty children, hopped up on candy and soda, fighting over who's going to catch a butterfly.

If we didn't know better, we might think our media colleagues who failed on reporting this story accurately were simply practicing to join Congress someday down the road.

Dying For Sanity

As we began combing through the news for today's commentary, a news item from CBS from Monday night, floated to the top of our stack of articles. The article notes that, as of Monday evening, a ballot measure in California passed - meaning that Californians will be voting this November on whether their state wants to follow seventeen others in abolishing the death penalty.

The debate on whether or not to keep the death penalty is a debate that seems to be happening in every state from Alaska to Nebraska. Even in countries like Tunisia, people all over the world appear to be taking another look at the death penalty. Many are getting rid of it, or at the least, curbing its use.

Last Friday, in North Carolina, a fairly new law - the Racial Justice Act - was applied by Cumberland County Judge Greg Weeks, who judged that death row inmate Marcus Robinson's case was obviously skewed by racial bias. So Judge Weeks commuted Robinson's sentence from the death penalty to life in prison, as the law allows. In short, the judge thought the previous death penalty sentence was unjust.

That quest for justice is what drove a committee created by the National Research Council to study the question death penalty advocates and opponents have been arguing for years: Is the death penalty actually effective as a deterrent to further crime?

It's a question that's been asked for thousands of years.

Virtually everyone who's studied ancient history knows about the deterrent used by the ancient Roman armies. They would torture and kill criminals who were guilty of serious crimes, and hang their bodies from posts next to the road, with a label telling the world their crime. It was part of what generated the Pax Romana, the period of peace that lasted about two hundred years, when Roman citizens were amazingly safe in the ancient world.

Of course, the practices that brought about that peace were brutal - and often unjust.

Back in our own time, the NRC's Committee of Deterrence and the Death Penalty looked at many studies of the death penalty, both pro and con, from around the world. After looking at all the data, they determined that the effectiveness of the death penalty is simply unclear.

In short, it doesn't work everywhere the same, if it works at all.

The committee did seem to agree that the way most of America currently uses the death penalty, its effectiveness as a deterrent is often minimized by factors like the long, drawn out legal battles we allow. As Miriam Thimm Kelle, the sister of James Thimm, a victim of a long-standing Nebraska death row inmate said recently, the way the system is now, when an inmate is sentenced, the families of the victim are sentenced too. Every time legal proceedings come back up for the death row inmate, the emotional wounds of the families are torn open.

While we understand the emotional anger and hunger for vengeance the families and friends of some victims of serious crime have, we honestly believe there are some punishments worse than death. Those who are creative can even imagine punishments that don't violate Geneva Convention rules, but would likely make the lives of anyone sentenced an unending, living hell.

Good. If someone has done significant evil, they should have to pay the price of their actions. The rest of us - especially the friends and families of the victims - should not also have to pay that price.

We'd love to see the day when the death penalty was abolished, and the only place you might see the Grim Reaper at work is a haunted house or a cheesy movie. Maybe that will happen someday, though we doubt it will be within our lifetimes.

For now, just put our wish for the death penalty on the "Things We'd Like To See" list - right next to our request to be millionaires.

Denial Is Not A River

While you may have missed it yesterday, since virtually none of the major U.S. or World news organizations gave the story anything other than brief mention, Sunday was Earth Day, for 2012.

For forty two years, Earth Day has been a day for many outside of the scientific and politic realms to also stand up, get involved, and take a serious, fact-based look at what mankind has done, and continues to do, to our planet. The science pointing toward climate change is far older than that, going back over a hundred years.

Still, climate change deniers continue to yell that climate change is a hoax, even as the facts add up against them - including things like cold weather animals and plants adapting to warmer weather to survive. Frankly, we'd love to see a polar bear move into their neighborhoods, if we thought it might awaken them to reality.

One of the most important facts is the difference between climate and weather.

Long and short, climate is the average trend of all the weather data, in a specific location, over a long period of time. That location can be as big as the Earth, or as small as your neighborhood. In contrast, weather is simply the atmospheric factors that are or have happened at any one point in the climate record.

There are those people who claim that the current trend of warmer and wetter than usual weather is just a normal adjustment in the natural shifting of the world climate - and those people would be wrong.

Climate scientists have done enough modeling to understand long-term trends in very accurate ways. They've done millions of computer simulations, with climate data from all over the world, taking into account all the actions that mankind has done to the environment over the last 100-150 years. The simulations keep saying the same things: without the heavy influence of mankind, the climate of the world could not have changed as fast as it has, in as short a time as it has. Period.

We're well aware that Earth Day was started by former Democratic Wisconsin Governor and U.S. Senator, Gaylord Nelson. For many modern Republicans, this automatically puts them on the other side side of the issue, because they seem to think they need to always be on the opposite side of anything anyone in the Democratic Party does. To us, that's a stupid idea.

Climate change is very real, and it is already highly likely to affect things - drastically - like the price of corn, and to drive new technologies, especially with renewable energy sources. That will mean the renewable energy sector will need some help from governments all over the world - including ours. It also means that when governments make investments in private exploratory research companies, and the market makes drastic turns - as it did with the Solyndra company - taxpayers will lose those bets once in a while.

Of course, what's rarely mentioned when right-wingers bring up Solyndra is that it was less than 2% of the U.S. government's investment in clean energy projects. The others were all successful - and in fact, the U.S. solar industry grew 69% during the time Solyndra was in existence.

Even nations like Mexico are now acknowledging that climate change is real, and their governments MUST do something about it. President Obama has done what he can, without Congress' assistance, by raising fuel efficiency standards and promoting climate change and renewable energy bills. Republicans in Congress, unsurprisingly, have not only killed the President's proposals, but also tried to stifle clean energy committees. The Republicans have even killed bills to reduce completely unnecessary subsidies to energy polluters like big oil and big coal.

Even if climate change wasn't real, the further development of clean, renewable, energy will benefit every American, as we can decrease or eliminate our dependence on oil purchased from the Middle East and South America. That's something we think even most climate change deniers could agree on.

We won't hold our breath it will change the minds of the deniers, though.

Maybe we'll just have to wait for their friendly neighborhood polar bear to bite them in the backside, before they wake up and realize the truth about climate change.

Friday Funday: Not Horsemeat Yet

In a week that's seen the deaths of legendary rock n' roll presenter Dick Clark, and legendary rock and roll singer Levon Helm, it seems fitting that tomorrow, Saturday April 21, is International Record Store Day - a real actual holiday, of sorts.

If you've never heard of it before, that may be because International Record Store Day began just five years ago, partially as a grassroots stunt, and partially as as a celebration of small, independent music resellers around the world.

Like cartoons and comic stores, the record store industry has been devastated by the advent and growth of the internet. Digital technologies - like smartphones, music players, and tablet computers - that have come with the growth of the internet have often turned musicians, cartoonists, writers, and photographers into people that major companies, and even our neighbors, tend to think of as "free content generators" - an offensive euphemism most often used by those who want to get our work for free, and sell it for a profit.

Thankfully, much as cartooning is finding new respect online - in part, due to the success of mostly-online cartoonists like Matt Wuerker, who, this week, won a Pulitzer Prize for his work with Politico - the old-fashioned, local, brick-and-mortar music stores are also beginning to find their place in the commercial hierarchy again.

Part of that success may also be because an estimated sixty-five percent of the music buying public continues to buy physical versions of the music they love.

For audiophiles and lovers of vinyl - like our staff member Shawn, who has worked in radio professionally for almost twenty years - International Record Store Day is a day filled with rare releases, and usually some pretty incredible deals, to boot.

For retailers who sell music - even those in the big box stores - Saturday will be more like Christmas, as International Record Store Day, after just five years, is considered one of the highest profit days for retailers of any physical music products. In 2011, according to Billboard magazine, sales of physical music saw a massive spike that retailers attributed almost completely to International Record Store Day,

It's also now considered one of the best and most successful grassroots-based marketing ideas in recent history - and it may indeed be the single biggest force helping to keep the record store industry alive.

There will be hundreds of bands with special releases on CD and vinyl this Saturday, and bands will be performing at local record stores all over the world. The coordinators of International Record Store Day even have their own website, where you can check out where the closest local record store is to you.

International Record Store Day is more than just a way to celebrate physical music. It's a way to celebrate a whole part of our collective human culture: the acquiring and trading of art in a physical form, with other people - something we support wholeheartedly.

We realize, accept, and even enjoy certain facets of modern technology in music that allow us to listen to and even purchase a copy of almost any song sold, from almost anywhere human beings go. Still, with the end of so many things flashing by all of us these days - including the horseracing industry in Nebraska - International Record Store Day is another sign, like Matt Wuerker's Pulitzer Prize, that while some things may change, we're not the only ones who still respect and even enjoy art, in a good, solid, physical form.

If you're looking for us this weekend, you'll likely find our staff members at one of our local music stores, supporting people just like us - artists, who know the value of something real.

Searching For An Anchor

It's an old axiom in American Presidential politics that the most important decision any President can make is who his or her Vice President will be. With the 2012 Election, that axiom is just as true as it's ever been, for either major candidate - though we certainly don't envy the task of Mitt Romney and his advisors.

For President Obama, the choice is easy, for a whole host of reasons. For one thing, current Vice President Joe Biden has a long history in the U.S. Senate - thirty-six years as a Senator - which gives him and the President some leverage in Congress they might not otherwise have. It also gives President Obama a sort of institutional memory of Washington, DC, which may explain why some politicians act so oddly at times. Their actions may simply be because of perceived slights or actions that Mr. Biden may have observed from many years ago, back when Barry Obama was in college for a bachelors degree.

Mr. Romney, on the other hand, is facing a staggering array of choices - and he's almost certain to disappoint some voters.

That's part of why non-incumbent presidential candidates like Mr. Romney, traditionally do what Mitt did recently, when he chose his longtime advisor Beth Meyers to head up his vice presidential search committee. Meyers has been an advisor to Romney for years, and acted as his Chief of Staff back when Mitt was governor of Massachusetts, so she may have as good a feeling as anyone about what kind of person might help compliment Romney's strengths and weaknesses.

One thing we don't advise Ms. Meyers to do is look to the media for help on who might make a good vice presidential pick. Nearly every media pundit and media organization seems to have their own idea of a good vice presidential choice for Mr. Romney.

From so-called "star" picks, like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and freshman Florida Senator Marco Rubio, to former Bush director of Office of Managment and Budget - and current Indiana Governor - Mitch Daniels, the names that members of the media keep throwing out there continue to pile up.

Some political handicappers look to potential candidates like Congressman Paul Ryan or former Florida governor Jeb Bush, as choices that might help pull a swing state into the win column for Romney in November.

Other possible choices like New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, or former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are seen as ways to hypothetically swing more of the minority vote towards Mitt - though we highly doubt either choice could swing enough votes, or would satisfy the Republican base of Mr. Romney's party.

Of course, as Matt Negrin of ABC News noted on Wednesday, the political ghost of Sarah Palin haunts any choice that Mr. Romney might make, much as the references to the Titanic have haunted the media throughout this month, on the hundredth anniversary of its sinking.

We don't suggest Mr. Romney & Ms. Meyers look to the members of the Republican Party for help on this either. The latest polling confirms Republicans are almost as divided on who they'd like to see Mr. Romney pick for VP, as the GOP base has been about who they've wanted for their Presidential pick.

If we were to give Mitt Romney any guidance at all on this issue, the best advice we could give is to choose the person that he'd pick for President if Mr. Romney knew he were dying of some horrible disease.

That person, man or woman, who is organized enough, disciplined enough, trustworthy enough, knowledgeable, wise, smart - and hopefully, somewhat humble - would be the person we'd recommend he pick.

Of course, if the GOP could find someone like that, who both the Republican Party base would vote for, along with the rest of the country, we doubt Mr. Romney would be the Republican Party's current presumptive nominee.

Picking Your Battles

While there are a pile of partially reported news items taking up the media landscape right now, we wanted to point out today two major issues: one that isn't being talked about but should be, and one that will likely a get lot of attention - and really shouldn't.

The news item you're not hearing a lot about, from any media outlet (except maybe this one), is the growing level and type of issues from veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

In the links we provide with our daily e-mail edition, we regularly point out both positive news and negative news about what our vets are facing when they come home and leave military service - like the unemployment stats for recent vets. The sad fact is, no one really knows if the most recent dip in unemployment for veterans is a trend or a data mistake, because we haven't had enough months of real data to make that call.  Either way, that rate is far higher than we think it should be.

The last thing our service members need from Americans who haven't recently served - or who never served - is to have to fight, when they get home, to get the benefits those servicemebers earned by doing the dirty business of our nation. Yet we keep seeing stories of Iraq and Afghanistan vets whose disability claims have been buried under a mountain of paperwork, or who've been looking for a job for several years now and still can't find one. If you're looking for stories of how badly America is failing its recent veterans - in both the public and private spheres - you won't have to look far.

It's not as though we didn't know these service members were coming home. Yet, we haven't prepared for their homecoming needs, as a nation - a fact that will be hitting us like a blast from outer space, very soon. But we doubt there will be any major media coverage of this sad fact - or any major movement from any political party to fix this issue.

What you will find a great deal of coverage of, over the next few months, are the exploits of a rich white man, that few people trust, trying to bully the current President of the United States, and anyone else that gets in his way - namely, Mitt Romney.

What else would you call a man who just a few years ago bragged about being a progressive-minded Republican, but on Tuesday pandered to an extremist right-wing media group, claiming there's now a 'vast left wing conspiracy' aligned against him?

This is the same man who actively went after the endorsement of right-wing extremist rock star Ted Nugent - but now that Nugent has threatened death if President Obama wins again in November, Romney is disavowing any connection with the extremist rocker, hunter, and commentator. Nugent isn't the only conservative figure on the right Romney is throwing under the bus, now that his path to the Republican nomination seems clear.

Kansas Secretary of State and well-known anti-immigration activist, Kris Kobach, has been a major advisor to Mitt Romney on his immigration policies. Yet, now that Romney is the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, the Romney campaign has tossed Kobach under the metaphorical campaign bus, in an obvious attempt to pivot back towards the political center.

On top of all this, now Romney's campaign has said that they are going to be literally following President Obama around, trying to get in his face, like a rich-boy bully, every day, for the foreseeable future. Romney could simply request a debate, or go around the country promoting his own best qualities. Instead, Romney will be chasing after Obama in real life, just as he is in many polls.

Mitt Romney's history of being on all sides of every issue - being as untrustworthy as the worst smarmy used car salesman you can imagine - is well known, and really shouldn't be in the news on a daily basis. It surprises us how any Republican who values honesty can even support Romney, knowing his history. Yet, Mitt will be the GOP nominee for president this year, whether Republicans like it or not, as we noted nearly a year ago.

Now, both of these stories - the needs of our veterans and Mitt Romney's increasingly untrustworthy actions - are important.

But we all know which one we Americans should truly be focusing our energies upon - and which one will be receiving more media attention over the next year.

Taxing Thoughts

Today, in the United States, it's Tax Day 2012, the last day that Americans can legally submit their completed income tax returns - or, if you're like Mitt Romney, the last day to get an extension until nearly the end of the Presidential campaign, which he may very well extend again past the end of the campaign.

There are a great many Americans thinking about important topics like taxes and tax fairness today - though we highly doubt you'll be hearing much honest discussion on these subjects in much of the mainstream media. Today, some of the media is still dwelling on the 'Mommy Wars', the fake hypocritical outrage we briefly noted yesterday. Many of the others are falsely claiming the Presidential horse race is closer than you might think - which is stupid, considering Pres. Obama leads Mr. Romney 52-43 in the latest CNN poll, Reuters has Obama up 47-43, Obama leads Romney by at least 16 points among women (25 points in the latest WaPo/ABC poll)... and it's only Tax Day, in April.

Don't expect Senate Republicans to be caring much about taxes either, today.

In fact, if you were expecting the Republicans in the U.S. Senate to care about subjects they've given lip service to for years - like fair tax rates, America's debt & deficit, or the federal government's need to collect more of the income it already claims to collect (but doesn't actually collect, for a host of reasons)? We're sorry to say the Republicans in the U.S. Senate - as expected - let you down again Monday night.

Yes, on Monday night, the GOP minority in the United States Senate did the only thing they've proven they're regularly capable of, as they once again filibustered legislation, this time the Buffett Rule, the proposed law designed to bring about tax fairness.

There has been some discussion in the media recently that a tax policy like the Buffett Rule may at best have made a measurable dent in the budget and deficit , and at worst, might have simply made Americans feel their tax system is less unfair. Whether either of those were accurate or not, Senate Republicans didn't want their colleagues to actually vote on the Buffett Rule - so we'll likely never know what the real effects of such a law might have been.

Thankfully, Ezra Klein at the Washington Post, and the group Citizens For Tax Justice, proved they do actually care about taxes, as CTJ once again pulled out their annual 'Who Pays Taxes in America' column, and Ezra simplified it for everyone.

In short, based on Gallup's annual survey on attitudes about taxes, the majority of Americans actually think the level of income taxes they pay are fair. Those Americans who feel their tax burden is the least fair, are those Americans that congressional Republicans want to make pay more in taxes, poor Americans.

Of course, right-wingers often claim that the poorest half of Americans don't pay taxes - which is complete baloney. Thankfully, CTJ and Ezra gathered and simplified those numbers too.

In fact, if you take into account the total tax burden of all Americans, they're surprisingly close - and the wealthy are paying more than anyone else, overall - but not by much. Not surprisingly, the largest burden is being carried by those in the middle and upper-middle classes.

That's exactly the kind of problem the Buffett Rule aimed at fixing - and exactly the legislative action congressional Republicans didn't want to give the Senate a real chance to vote on.

What taxes us most at times like this, are that the things Americans really seem to care about most boil down to having a fair chance to improve their lives, and the lives of their friends, family, and loved ones, today.

The things the Republican politicians seem to really care about boil down to how much of a drag the rest of American society is on their personal financial success.

Unexpected Events

This past weekend was filled with both expected and unexpected events, from coast to coast. As scheduled, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony happened in Cleveland, and as expected, legendary troublemaker Axl Rose did not show up, even though his band was inducted into the Hall.

In the NBA, NHL, and MLB, there were more than a few surprises over the weekend, too. Of course, the biggest sports surprise may have happened Saturday, when storms roared through Nebraska, and cancelled the Husker Football Spring Game for the first time in its 62 year history. Even though the University of Nebraska lost nearly four hundred thousand dollars due to the cancellation, Athletic Director Tom Osborne tried to feed the fans - for free - who had already showed up on Saturday. It may not have seemed like much, but it was not a surprise to us that Osborne tried to take care of the Husker faithful.

Another much less positive event, that was also not a surprise to us, happened late Friday in Nebraska, when Republican Governor Dave Heineman - a man who claims to be pro-life when it's convenient - vetoed LB599, a bill from the Nebraska Legislature to give pre-natal care to poor women in need.

We've spoken about this bill a great deal lately, in part because we've been so happily surprised at how clearly the fight over this bill is exposing the blatant hypocrisy within the Republican Party.

In Heineman's veto letter, the Governor argued that if LB599 passes, Planned Parenthood might potentially get taxpayer dollars to help poor women with pre-natal services. Planned Parenthood often offers those services at its clinics around the country. However, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland confirmed to the Omaha World Herald that it does NOT offer those services at either of its Nebraska clinics - which exposes Heineman's hypocrisy completely.

The reaction from one of Nebraska's most historically powerful opponents of Planned Parenthood - Nebraska Right to Life - was explosive, as they blasted the Governor for his stance on this bill.

For once, we completely agree with Nebraska Right to Life on Heineman's actions on the Prenatal Care bill - something that you, our readers, may also find unexpected. We don't think you should really be surprised, though. Heineman's past legislative history is not that of someone who is truly concerned about the life of pregnant women, or even someone honestly concerned about immigration.

If Heineman were truly concerned about immigration, he would have brought forward bills during the last decade to crack down - with severe penalties - on agribusiness corporations that hire undocumented immigrants and pay them under the table. He could have done that, or any number of other things to try and work with the Federal government to solve Nebraska's undocumented immigrant problem. Instead, Heineman has done nothing significant regarding immigration since he got into the Governor's office in 2005.

Simply put, Heineman has always done little more than give lip-service to those groups - like Nebraska Right to Life - that he claims to be so closely aligned to. To him and those who think like him - like state Sen. Tony Fulton, or GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney - political advocacy groups are merely political pawns, to be played in a game whose only goal is to win, not to govern.

Unsurprisingly, Romney himself got caught in yet another example of his own hypocrisy over the weekend, as video footage of Mr. Romney from January of this year, contradicted what he and his campaign have been crowing about since the end of last week.

In that January video, Romney said that mothers should be required to work outside their homes, so they can  "have the dignity of work" - as though women who work at home don't have dignity. That footage proves Romney and the Republican Party's latest fake indignation about the "Mommy Wars" is just like Gov. Heineman's claims of being pro-life or against illegal immigration -- just another desperate political pander, that they don't truly believe in.

As we've said previously, this kind of hypocrisy is something we've come to expect from the modern, twisted version of the GOP. If you're honestly surprised about Heineman's or Romney's actions, you haven't really been paying attention.

It's long past time that you do.

Friday Funday: True Nature

Since this past winter was significantly warmer than normal, you may have been seeing signs of a very early spring where you are for quite some time now.

Regardless of what the temperatures have been - and how the trees, flowers, grass, and animals have been acting - the 2012 version of spring has many of the more traditional signs of the season popping up, including the annual Husker Spring Football Game.

It's a true rite of spring we've often had mixed feelings about over the years. Surprisingly, some folks involved in politics seem to think Nebraskans are having similarly mixed feelings about former Senator Bob Kerrey.

We really don't know where these people are coming from.

Bob Kerrey was not only born in Nebraska - in Lincoln, the capitol city - but he went to elementary, junior high, and high school in Lincoln, and graduated from the University of Nebraska, in Lincoln. Kerrey then chose to serve his country in the Navy SEALs, and served in Vietnam, at a time when so many others were finding any way they could to avoid serving.

Mr. Kerrey lost part of one leg serving his country - and when he was done with his service, he came back to Nebraska, where he became a successful businessman, then Nebraska's governor, and finally one of Nebraska's two U.S. Senators.

While Kerrey has spent some time working in other places over the past few years - mostly because far-away places were the ones to offer him challenging jobs that weren't in lobbying firms in Washington, DC - he's always kept property in Nebraska, and has come back to visit his family as often as he could.

All these Nebraska ties, to any real Nebraskan, certainly prove Kerrey's true nature as a fellow Nebraskan. Yet, according to people like the draft-dodging Karl Rove and his big-money, out-of-state SuperPAC, Kerrey is supposed to be a "carpetbagger" - someone who is, by definition, "a political candidate who seeks election in an area where they have no local connections."

For those of us who are REAL Nebraskans - regardless of how we feel about Kerrey's past political performances - we have to laugh at the hypocrisy of Rove and other out-of-state Republicans calling Kerrey "someone who has no local connections."

In a similar way to how the weather and the calendar have been giving contradictory signals, and to how Rove's minions have been calling Mr. Kerrey names, we have a similar feeling about the Husker Spring game.

Every year, no matter where we are at the time, when we see the pictures, and we read, hear, and watch the stories from the Nebraska media on how Husker spring football is going,  we have to tell the little people inside of us to calm down, chill out, and not get too excited. We know exactly what's going to happen - because it's the same thing that's happened for many years now.

The young Huskers will play this weekend, Red squad against White - and then college football for Husker fans will be done until autumn.

Even when some in the media begin talk about potential spring scrimmages against other teams in their conference or division, everyone honestly knows, in their heart of hearts, that the real football season won't happen until fall.

Just as the truth of spring is both the calendar and the temperature, and the true nature of Bob Kerrey is a Nebraskan, the true season for college football is fall.

Even so, we sure will enjoy ourselves this weekend, as we watch the 2012 Spring Football Game.

Enjoy your weekend, whatever you're doing.

Searching For Answers

We've been noticing a strange trend for much of the last year - and especially over the last few weeks - that while there are interesting, and sometimes important topics to talk about, Americans haven't been having real and substantive debates on truly important subjects - especially over the last year or so.

Take the ruling by the Supreme Court about a week and a half ago.

The ruling - unsurprisingly along the Court's ideological lines - came down five-to-four, in favor of unlimited strip searching for ANY detention, by ANY person in a position of official authority, who is normally qualified to engage in those kinds of searches. That means city police, country sheriffs, state troopers, TSA agents, members of any U.S. intelligence organization, military police, park rangers, DEA agents... the list goes on and on. If any one of those people decide you look like a potential suspect they heard about in the squad room, they can now legally pick you up, take you to the precinct, and make you drop your drawers.

After all, you MIGHT be guilty of... something. Someday.

As offensive as this decision by the Court is -  a decision that completely tramples on the U.S. Constitution, and basically blows away our Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure - it isn't what has us worked up today.

What has us angry is that virtually NO ONE seems to have said anything about it. All those idiots out screaming, "Keep your damn guv'mint hands off my Medicare," over the last few years? Just silence from them.

How about Congress? Have you heard anything from them on this issue? In fact, since the Republicans took over the majority in the House, have they accomplished anything of substance? Not that we can think of, off the tops of our heads, no. In fact, the only time the current GOP-led House has shown any real leadership has been when they've been putting off votes, putting off hard choices, or otherwise moving Congressional business so that their members can get an extra day off.

That's a HUGE problem for us - and also for effective, efficient, American government.

In the Oval Office, at least, there's been some action - though that action has been somewhat limited, since the President is only ONE of the three co-equal branches of our government.

Lately, President Obama has been pushing hard on the Buffett Rule as PART of an overall budget strategy. The truth is, Mr. Obama's been working on getting Congress to pass the Buffett Rule for over a year, as a way to try and make our national deficit lower, our federal income tax code more fair, and bring our federal budget under control. The fact that Republican icon Ronald Reagan agreed with the general idea President Obama now supports - that our tax system should not be skewed against working Americans - surprisingly seems to hold almost no weight with the opposition.

Unsurprisingly, Republicans have sandbagged President Obama's plan as not enough to fix our deficit problem, as a single-action silver bullet for our country's budget issues. Of course, these same hypocritical Republicans constantly fail to mention that the Romney/Ryan Budget plan they they favor not only doesn't bring in any revenue, like the Buffet Rule would. The Ryan/Romney plan gives a quarter million dollars in tax breaks to every American millionaire, while actually making our debt and deficit worse.

Yet, as Tax Day 2012 approaches, we're hearing very little substantive debate on the Buffett Rule from either the media or our politicians. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a vote on the Buffett Bill in the Senate for next Monday - but that's right as members of Congress will be returning from their most recent two-week break. The idea that any serious and substantive debate over tax fairness will happen before next Monday's vote is ludicrous.

Yet, on this issue, from our fellow members of the media, all we're hearing is silence.

It's long past time for Americans to pull our collective heads out of our backsides, and start talking again about subjects that matter, in the media and to one another.

If you can't find your own head, to pull it out of your metaphorical backside? Go throw a stone at a cop. Then they can take you to the station, strip you down, and help you find it.

Time To Take The Trash Out...

Without question, yesterday was not a boring day, in either the media at large, or the specific corner of the media where politics is the focus.

We'll leave you to click through on your own to read about things like the Petrino scandal erupting at Arkansas, the latest from the Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman, or the latest on North Korea's "satellite launch."

In our corner of the media world, on Tuesday, in American politics at the national level, the general election portion of the 2012 Presidential race began in earnest. For at least one candidate, that meant the first of many quiet "trash days" for some of his more extreme viewpoints.

It's true that Rick Santorum's surprise announcement that he was getting out of the 2012 GOP race for President, and President Obama's blistering - and accurate - address about tax fairness dominated the political media landscape Tuesday. Still, some astute media watchers have already began watching for the first signs of Mitt Romney'salmost inevitable pivot towards the center - what journalist Timothy Noah is already calling the "Etch A Sketch Watch."

We've been in complete agreement with Greg Sargent at The Washington Post's Plum Line blog for quite some time on this subject, that Mitt Romney's general election campaign strategy will almost certainly need to have the forgetfulness of the American electorate, if Romney is to gain any traction with so-called independent voters. When Romney's advisor Eric Fehrnstrom confirmed the Romney plan with Fehrnstrom's "Etch A Sketch" comment a couple of weeks ago, it was only an accidental admission of what virtually everyone in politics already assumed was Romney's intent.

We think moving toward the center will damage Romney with the extremists in the Republican party. It's also the only chance he has to gain more votes from independents and moderates. We also believe that that President Obama was absolutely correct when he said that the 2012 election may present the most obvious choice - and most lopsided results - since the Johnson-Goldwater election of 1964.

A perfect example of this showed up this week in what has been a swing state for much of the last decade, Colorado. In a poll released Tuesday, Romney is getting killed in the Rocky Mountain state. President Obama has gone from a statistical tie in December in Colorado, to a thirteen point lead now - and the trendlines for Obama are only going up.

It's a similar story for Romney and Obama with women, nationally. The most recent Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday gave Obama a 27 point lead among women.

Among Latino voters, in a Fox News poll released in early March, President Obama got the support of 70 percent of Latino voters, while Romney got 14 percent - almost half of what Sen. John McCain got in the 2008 election.

And don't even talk to Mitt Romney about the appalling level of Republican voter apathy right now. The Republican enthusiasm gap, as we mentioned recently in another commentary, is yawning like the maw of a giant political leviathan.

We're not saying this election is in the bag for Democrats - not by a long shot. Even if President Obama wins his race, some of the most important races will be in Congressional and state level races - places where Democrats still have a great deal of work to do.

Even so, like Tim Noah and Greg Sargent, we're anxiously awaiting to see how the Romney campaign is going to attempt to toss out some of the extreme positions Mr. Romney vigorously supported throughout the GOP Primary race. As Romney now attempts to court the more moderate, sane, middle-of-the-political road voters - without drawing angry rebukes from the Tea Party/extremist wing of the party - it'll be mighty hard to bury the hatchet and get rid of his previous positions when everyone is watching.

As a very well-known Republican politician once said about another major challenge, "Bring it on." We can't wait.

Hoist By Their Own Petard

It may seem odd to some, but we've been talking about the GOP's coming civil war for a long time. If you're someone who pays attention to state-level news from across America - as we do - it's obvious those previously quiet intra-party conflicts have now broken out from behind the doors of formerly smoke-filled rooms.

From the Minnesota Republican Party - where the GOP is seven figures in debt and in danger of losing their own state party headquarters - to the Ohio Republican Party - which as Politico reported yesterday, has been "in a state of open warfare for months" - the extremist Republicans have finally turned their dogmatic machine on their own party, with the kind of results we've been forecasting for years now.

In Nebraska, that battle has spilled onto the floor of the state Legislature, just as the 2012 session is about to end.

Nebraska Republicans in the Unicameral have decided to take up the topic of restoring funding for prenatal care to women living in Nebraska - an extension of the issue they warred over with the Republican Governor in early 2010.

At that time, after some changes in federal law affected a change in who Nebraska's prenatal assistance services covered, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman vetoed a bill put through by both Democrats and Republicans, to attempt to re-create the program Nebraska formerly had.

That previous Nebraska program covered pregnant women who needed to have prenatal care, but were in severe financial distress and could not afford it. That one-time Nebraska program also had one other key feature: it did not discriminate between long-time Nebraska citizens and immigrants to Nebraska. The program was simply designed to help women get prenatal care, in order to help decrease infant birth defects - and in turn, decrease the long-term cost to the state.

Back in 2010, the "pro-life" wing of the Nebraska GOP teamed up with Nebraska Democrats who cared about women, and went after Gov. Heineman to defend their bill - and lost.

This time, however, the forces in favor of helping women - and passing LB 599, a bill that would restore funding for Nebraska's prenatal assistance program - are being led by state Sen. Mike Flood, one of the most powerful other Republicans in Nebraska.

As the vote-counting on LB599 currently stands, it appears that the bill will pass the Nebraska Legislature solidly - but the bill still needs to have at least 30 votes, for a veto-proof majority.

That's a number the anti-immigrant faction of the Republican Party - including Gov. Heineman - is committed to making sure the Nebraska Legislature doesn't reach.

Meanwhile, pregnant women in Nebraska - who are in severe financial straits,  for whatever reason - are still left hanging, as they have been for the last two years.

Anyone who hasn't been completely blinded by partisanship could have told you these kinds of battles were brewing in the Republican Party several years ago, just as we did.

After all, when the Nebraska GOP's methods have blinded them to the point where they simply throw bombs at anyone who disagrees with the party line - even when those people are their own members - what do they expect?

Measuring Up

Our initial plan today was to talk about the Affordable Care Act - and the lack of any real alternative plan from the Republican Party. Regardless of the pending decision of the Supreme Court, the ACA will still be able to stand without the mandate. We'd be happy to compare President Obama's ACA and the plan of the Republican Party – but after nearly a year-and-a-half of chanting 'repeal and replace', the GOP still doesn't have a replacement plan.

We've chosen not to focus on a comparison of health care plans today, though. As veteran journalist Mike Wallace might have told us, that would be too easy for us.

So we're focusing on the more difficult-to-nail-down Wallace, who died over the weekend at the age of 93. Mr. Wallace is a hard subject to focus on, in large part, because he was the kind of journalist who so much of the media never really understood - and really still needs to.

Mr. Wallace didn't have formal training as a journalist. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1939 with a Bachelor of Arts degree - not a journalism or broadcast journalism degree, as many thought he had. He became a pro by studying broadcasting and journalism - but not formally. Wallace simply found his way into the college radio station, enjoyed it, was good at it, and stayed in the media for nearly the rest of his life.

Frankly, our entire staff is familiar with stumbling into successful careers in media and communications, much like Mike Wallace did.

For all the incredible but hostile interviews he conducted, and for being credited with developing things like the "ambush interview" - where a reporter catches a subject off-guard - Wallace actually had an incredible sense of journalistic integrity. His colleagues Ed Bradley, Morley Safer, Harry Reasoner all shared that same journalistic integrity - as some like Dan Rather and Lesley Stahl still do.

While there were some notable times when Wallace fought against the corporate execs at CBS and lost, his own professional integrity never seemed to fail. So many in the media these days attempt to mimic Wallace's style and fail regularly - most notably, Wallace's youngest son Chris, who works for the right-wing propaganda distribution machine at Fox.

What most of them seem to have forgotten - or never learned - was that Mike Wallace's style may have been confrontational at times, but it was not his only journalistic tool, and not even his most commonly used one.

For those people who've studied Mike Wallace, and for those who knew him, they say his research and "homework" abilities were truly the key to his success. He worked hard to boil down complicated concepts and stories into understandable and relevant twelve or eighteen minute packages that would usually air just once, on Sunday nights. You can be sure that some of the millions of Americans who watched his work may not have even heard about some of the topics he reported on, before he introduced them.

Stories from Wallace's colleagues note how intent he was on getting things right. He was almost as focused on grabbing just the right story to tell, as he was about getting the story factually right. More than once, he was known to steal a story assignment from one of his colleagues - because he thought he could do the story better.

He usually was right to do so, something his colleagues have also admitted.

We've been proudly watching 60 Minutes lately, and to the eyes of our own staff, the current reporters on that show like Steve Kroft, Lara Logan, and Byron Pitts, seem to be measuring up very favorably to their more seasoned co-workers, like Leslie Stahl, Morley Safer - and of course, the late, great Mike Wallace.

More of our colleagues in the media should to try to measure up not to the flash and shock value of Wallace's most controversial interviews, but instead focus on getting their facts right while being able to tell the stories they choose effectively and quickly. By doing that they too might leave the ranks of the mere media figures, and legitimately join the ranks of real journalists, as Wallace himself did.

Here's to the hope more try to measure up - and succeed.

Friday Funday: Finding Peace

Hunting through the weeds of the news as we prepped for today's edition, we were reminded that  millions of Americans will be celebrating Easter or Passover this weekend. We immediately thought of all the Easter egg hunts, Passover seders, family dinners, and religious ceremonies - as well as holiday horror stories - that will be going on. We were also pleasantly reminded by our resident Rockies fan that it's also Major League Baseball's opening weekend, as well as the weekend of the PGA's Masters Tournament.

On top of all of those things, this weekend also begins with President Obama, Mitt Romney, and even Newt Gingrich all agreeing on the same topic: that women should be allowed to be members of the Augusta National Golf Club, where The Masters Tournament is held every year.

We're not thinking this single moment is a universal kumbaya moment that will suddenly turn the 2012 political season into a modern-day peace festival. It is, however, a moment that we'd like you to focus on for just a minute, if not in the spirit of the weekend, then because it's good to think of the potential, of what things could be.

As we noted, on Thursday, President Obama, Mr. Romney, and Mr. Gingrich all made comments or tweets regarding the issue of women becoming members at Augusta. All three men agreed, and none took a swipe at any of the others on the issue. For once, we had a moment of complete agreement, across the board, in the 2012 Presidential race, where everyone agreed: women are great people, they could be great golf club members, and there's no reason to deny women membership to the premiere course in the world of professional golf.

In short, women can golf as well as men. In truth, quite a few women golfers could beat the men on our staff, without question.

That didn't stop Billy Payne, the Chairman of Augusta National, at his annual press conference, from still trying to duck the issue of why women continue to be denied membership to Augusta.

Veteran journalist Christine Brennen wrote a fantastic piece about Payne, and how he used to be a huge advocate for women golfers - even pledging, long ago, to one day get women membership at Augusta. It may make you sad that he's apparently abandoned his former role as an advocate for gender equality in sports - but we prefer to focus on the positive this weekend.

Women have made huge strides in professional sports, and in professions of all kinds. IBM just named its first women CEO ever, Virginia Rometty - though unlike nearly every other IBM CEO, she has not yet been granted an automatic membership to Augusta. This snub, of course, does nothing to diminish her achievements, her experience, or her value as a woman or a professional. If anything, we think the prominence, clout, and visibility enjoyed by her and so many other powerful women makes Augusta - and other discriminatory organizations like it - look less and less relevant every year.

If you were watching the NCAA Women's basketball tournament this past week, you likely saw Brittney Griner and the Baylor Bears accomplish a feat NO other college basketball team - men's or women's - has EVER achieved: a perfect 40-0 season.

Make no mistake; even in the midst of all kinds of successes for women, there are indeed plenty of misogynistic men and women who continue to try and take away many of the hard-won rights of American women.

With all the talk of the 'War on Women' though, we wanted to point out that women - and even some men - who might not otherwise agree on almost anything, seem to have found some peace and common ground this weekend.

Hope springs eternal.

We hope you have a good weekend, and that you find lots of Easter eggs. Preferably fresh ones.