Clown Show Climate

While we're unsure of how long this respite will last, it appears that extremist right-wing stupidity on the national level experienced a bit of a lull this past weekend. Of course, there are always the exceptionally stupid and evil, and both Iowa's Rep. Steve King and Texas' Sen. Ted Cruz continued to  fill those roles.

Still, most Congressional Republicans now appear to have finally joined their Democratic colleagues for once, getting serious by turning their attention to the federal budget and immigration bills. On both fronts, developments so far look promising, with some Republicans now finally acknowledging that new tax revenues must be part of any budget deal. Elected Republicans have also begun to admit publicly that immigration reform must happen soon.

This positive turn of events at the national level allowed us to turn our eyes back to our state offices, where the level of political idiocy seems to be on the rise.

Surprisingly, the level of stupid in Florida politics seems to be at the lowest of our three locations right now - even if a bit of ridiculousness did happen surrounding the funeral of U.S. Rep. Bill Young last week. Virginia's level of political stupid has been ramped up recently thanks to the ugly gubernatorial race, where Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe solidly leads current Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Since Cuccinelli also oversees the state's voting laws, this race could get far more nutty before it's all over in a little more than week.

The climate of political stupid in our home state of Nebraska, however, reached new levels recently. That fact became evident to the whole world last week, as the clown show that will certainly be the 2014 elections spilled over into action commissioned this past spring by the Nebraska legislature.

We've published quite a lot about the importance of water to Nebraska over the years, and we wrote about that climate change study earlier this year, in reference to the Keystone pipeline and the effects on water use in Nebraska. We specifically noted Nebraska state Sen. Tom Carlson's surprising but brutally honest quote, that "We will die" if Nebraska's fragile access to an amazing surplus of clean, drinkable, useable water disappears.

The overwhelming majority of the world's climate science studies - 97% of them - concur with Sen. Carlson about water. They all agree that one of the key resources affected by climate change will be safe, clean, potable water. Drought, in fact, was a major cause of the ongoing war in Syria.

Apparently, none of that seems to matter to Nebraska Republican state Sen. Beau McCoy - a GOP candidate for governor in 2014, and a climate change denier. As Nancy Gaarder pointed out in the Omaha World Herald, McCoy slipped a provision into Nebraska's climate study bill making it impossible to do an intellectually honest investigation of the problems of climate change, which would include the role of how humans have affected the climate.

This is exactly why University of Nebraska-Lincoln scientists at last week's Climate Assessment and Response Committee meeting immediately refused to do the study. That the Nebraska legislature had also demanded the study be completed next year, and only budgeted $44,000 for the full study, just adds to the clownish nature of dogmatic right-wing extremists like state Sen. McCoy.

For now, it's clear that legitimate scientists aren't going to allow themselves to be seen as political pawns in Nebraska - meaning the climate change study will likely go undone. That also means another tool to properly judge the future water needs of Nebraskans will not exist, even as Keystone's backers attempt another effort to jam the pipeline through.

Without proper data and planning, Nebraskans may not have enough water to drink in about fifty years, let alone grow crops, as Nebraska state Senator Tom Carlson made clear earlier this year.

At least Nebraskans will have another example of clownishly stupid dogmatic politics to study, courtesy of Nebraska state Sen. McCoy.

Overflowing With Wisdom

As the decision from the State Department came down last Friday to delay the official ruling on the Keystone pipeline, we had a chuckle or two among our staff - in part because the announcement happened just before Earth Day.

Even while the 'Cowboy and Indian Alliance' was marching around the National Mall yesterday on Earth Day to protest the Keystone pipeline, the potentially disastrous project remains in the same place it's been since February. That's when a Nebraska judge verified that the political runaround favored by TransCanada was unconstitutional, leaving the massive oil corporation with no legally approved route through the Cornhusker State for the Keystone XL project.

That inconvenient truth didn't seem to deter Politico's Ben White on Monday, as Emily Atkin noted over at Think Progress. White railed against the delay on CNBC, saying that the State Department just didn't seem to understand its role in the whole process. Many other pundits on both the right and left simply insisted the decision on Keystone was a purely political one.

What's been clear for a very long time to native Nebraskans like us who care about the future, is that folks like Ben White, TransCanada, and the "it's all about politics" crowd are the ones who don't seem to "get it" when it comes to Keystone. So let us help make this brutally clear: Nebraskans don't want the pipeline, for some very good reasons, and those reasons aren't going to change.

We've written and drawn more than a few times over the last few years about the Keystone pipeline, and the biggest reason for Nebraska to refuse this project that we always come back to is water.

The Keystone XL pipeline, if it is ever authorized in Nebraska, would go over part of the Ogallala Aquifer, the worlds largest underground source of clean water. That water has come to be more than just a symbol for Nebraska and the other states on the Great Plains. It's the source of water that allows America to feed itself and much of the rest of the world, even as drought has become somewhat normal again for the region.

If that source of water is ever contaminated, as a undetected leak of tar sands oil and related chemicals could easily do, it wouldn't just be a minor environmental event. It could mean that a large section of the midwest would no longer be able to grow food, or allow people to have access to drinking water. No water, no crops, no herds, no people, no business, no income, no food.

No kidding. All it would take is one wrong spill. Just one, and you could say good bye to our entire home state, permanently.

Sure - there are pundits who say that other elements of environmental responsibility, like the expected new emission rules, far outweigh the impact of Keystone.

We also understand how many Americans handle issues that don't happen right in their own backyard - badly. Four years after the Gulf oil disaster, and twenty-five years after the Valez oil spill in Alaska, most Americans have no idea that both disasters are still ongoing - including, in the case of the Gulf spill, BP's attempts to wriggle out of any serious legal penalties.

That, in a nutshell, is why Nebraskans continue to refuse Keystone, and why Americans who care about the environment still celebrate Earth Day every year: To remind Americans that these fights to keep our water, air, and environment clean are a daily struggle, one that we should all be paying attention to.

If we don't, we literally may lose our entire state. One spill is all it could take.

Knowing that, it shouldn't be difficult for anyone to understand why Nebraskans would prefer TransCanada to "get lost."

Staring Down The Sacred Cows

For several months now, we've generally left the politics of our home state, Nebraska, off these pages. In part that decision has been motivated by the fact that - at least in an above board capacity - there hasn't really been any major political action going on at home.

Of course, we've also had plenty of political follies and failures to keep our attention as we've watched Virginia politics implode, from our DC office. The massive, messy, and unbelievably corrupt scandalpalooza of Virginia's Gov. Bob McDonnell is more real - and likely more devastating - than any of the fake scandals the mainstream media has been screaming about lately. There's also been the usual circus - politically and otherwise - to keep our attention in our South Florida office, including the trial of George Zimmerman.

In our Nebraska office, however, we've been waiting for the other political shoe to finally drop on the failed tax reform plans that Nebraska's GOP Governor Dave Heineman has been longing for since at least the beginning of 2012.

Wednesday, that shoe finally fell as the Nebraska Tax Modernization Committee - created this year by the Nebraska Legislature - began to get to work to decide which of Nebraska's sacred cows of tax policy are likely to end up on the political grill next year. However, for Governor Heineman and those like him hoping the committee will give them a reason to slash taxes, the news this week may have actually put the tax cows they'd like to put the budget knife to out of reach.

In case you missed the news, according to corporate-leaning cable channel CNBC, Nebraska now ranks fourth in the nation for best economic climate for business. While Gov. Heineman tried to put a shine on that news this week, news of Nebraska's successful business climate directly counters a key reason Heineman gave for wanting to cut taxes in both 2012 and 2013 - namely that Nebraska needed to cut taxes more in order to be favorable to business.

For Heineman and his tax cut addicted friends there was even more bad news this week. On Tuesday, it was announced that Nebraska's fiscal year, which finished June 30, was incredibly robust, as the year finished with significantly more money in the state's coffers than had been expected.

For state oversight agencies like the auditor's office, state ag and water management projects, schools - including Nebraska's six state colleges and universities, and even basic health care programs, this bounty of tax revenues should be great news, as Nebraska may finally be able to properly fund its fiscal responsibilities and obligations, after several years of deep painful cuts.

Unsurprisingly, Governor Heineman greeted the news about Nebraska's business climate and budget bonus in the selfish, foolish, arrogant way that we've come to expect from modern Republican politicians who live in the pockets of their wealthy donors. Heineman and company immediately began talking about giving tax cuts to their friends, instead of wisely noting that now is time to repair Nebraska's investments and to prepare for future economic storms and droughts.

While we applaud the idea of modernizing tax structures and laws everywhere, including in Nebraska, some of the basic rules about taxes and budgets remain the same as they always have - including the problems of staring down the 'sacred cows' on government budget sheets. The most basic fact remains the same: In the good times, the government should repair, replace, invest, and save, so that the bad times won't be nearly so bad.

Until voters elect officials truly willing to take on sacred cows - like the idea that any unexpected bonus tax revenue should always go to the rich instead of being reinvested back into the state - don't expect anything but bull from people like Nebraska's Gov. Heineman.

Welcome And Unwelcome Guests

We apologize in advance if we're a bit distracted this week. We're excited that our friend and Paul's fellow cartoonist, Gustavo Rodriguez, is going to be our guest for a few days.

As the current staff cartoonist for El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language version of The Miami Herald, and as a naturalized American citizen, who emigrated from Cuba, Gustavo has had more than his fair share of dealing with bureaucracy and strange government rules under both so-called capitalism and so-called socialism. We're sure Mr. Rodriguez will be willing to discuss many of those differences with the journalism and other students he'll meet at Peru State College this week. You can even join him at the recital hall tonight at 7, local time, or in the Student Center, Wednesday morning, starting at 11.

The likelihood is that many of the individuals Gustavo addresses will listen intently, and some may even learn to think about a few subjects in a different way.

We're not so confident that the members of Nebraska's Unicameral will follow the lead of those young college students.

Today marks the beginning of the special session for that body of lawmakers, and they have only one topic to consider: the Keystone XL pipeline.

As we've mentioned previously and extensively, even allowing the existence of a new Keystone pipeline over the Ogallala Aquifer endangers the water supply for the entire middle section of the United States - where large portions of the world's food are grown.

Not surprisingly, TransCanada, the massive oil company desperate to build this pipeline, hired lawyers - not scientists or pipeline engineers - to release a statement on Monday to attempt to tie the hands of the Nebraska Legislature, and limit the scope and vision of the task that lies before them.

Like our welcome guest, Gustavo, and the students at Peru State, we hope our suggestions here to members of the Nebraska Legislature will help widen that scope back to where it should be.
In short, we're aware the pipeline is likely to ultimately go through Nebraska, regardless of what its opponents do or say.

That doesn't mean TransCanada should be able to bully and push the citizens of Nebraska around, in a similar way to the unwelcome and unethical influence exerted by Wall Street banks on the American political landscape.

The Nebraska Legislature MUST seriously consider not only its legal obligation to its own citizens, but also the fact that, should the pipeline leak oil or other contaminants into the aquifer, virtually every other state in the central portion of the country may sue Nebraska for destroying their water supplies as well.

Furthermore, while there are already Federal standards for safety along the pipeline, Nebraska currently has almost no significant binding legislation regarding the cleanup of a natural disaster, like a massive oil spill.

Finally, one of Nebraska's extended neighbors has already dealt with the bullies of Big Oil over a similar nature - and won. Nebraska's senators and governor should warmly welcome advice from Montana's Governor Brian Schweitzer and Montana's legislators, on the problems they experienced - and how they could have handled their own pipeline re-routing challenge better.

There are ways in life to make some interactions with even unwelcome guests more successful.

Many times, those methods for success can be learned from the guests we'd rather interact with.

Slipping On Reality

What do Minnesota, Wisconsin, Utah, and Arkansas all have in common? If you said "None of those teams are in the 2013 NCAA Men's Final Four," you wouldn't be wrong this year, though you also wouldn't be correct - at least within the boundaries of our topic for today.

If your answer was, "All four states have experienced massive oil spills within the last year - and three within the last two weeks," you'd be correct, unfortunately.

The latest disaster this weekend saw thousands of barrels of oil spewing from a ruptured Exxon Mobil pipeline into a residential neighborhood in central Arkansas. Twenty-two homes had to be evacuated, in a spill that literally saw oil running down residential streets and between houses.

Of course, since it was a holiday weekend, smack in the middle of Congress' latest two-week vacation, it was nearly impossible to find a politician of any kind with something serious to say about the latest oil disaster. That doesn't surprise us, since politicians of all kinds have been slipping and dancing around the issues of oil and environmental safety for far too many years now.

For all the work the Obama Administration has done on environmental issues - like requiring much better fuel standards for cars and trucks, or clamping down on emissions - the fact of the matter is, none of that will matter if President Obama and other politicians don't stop the Keystone pipeline route through Nebraska.

No matter what the decision is on the Keystone pipeline, the most important liquid flowing through Nebraska over the next hundred years wont be oil - something a task force in the Nebraska Legislature made very clear last week.

As reporter JoAnne Young noted, Nebraska state Sen. Tom Carlson, in a meeting of the Legislature's Natural Resources Committee last week, talked about what could happen if America ever runs out of affordable gas, coal, or oil. "We will survive," he said.

However, if Nebraskans ever lose access to our amazing surplus of clean, drinkable, useable water? "We will die," said Carlson.

For all the bluster already flooding the media from the oil companies about how many trucks they sent to Arkansas to suck up the tar sands oil from the neighborhood, or how well the cleanup is going from the oil spill in Minnesota, the facts remain the same. No matter how much cleanup is done in either location, the raw tar sands oil has now damaged both areas where the spills have occurred, in ways that neither area will fully recover from for many years to come.

No matter how many short-term temporary jobs the Keystone pipeline will generate, all it takes is one spill, once, in any area over the Ogallala Aquifer, and ALL the jobs in a county or a region could be lost, because the water may no longer be suitable for irrigating crops or slaking the thirst of Nebraska residents.

Just one spill could do exactly what state Sen. Carlson fears, and kill off a large area of Nebraska, Kansas, or anywhere else along the path of the pipeline, as water is turned from a lifeline into worthless poison.

If you don't think the price is too high for that kind of oil - oil Americans will never see, as it will be shipped to foreign ports and sold abroad - ask yourself these questions:

If you lived in the neighborhood of an oil spill, how safe would you feel drinking the water from your well? How safe would you feel letting your kids play outside? What price would you pay to never have to see crude oil flooding the streets of your neighborhood?

These are kinds of questions our politicians from both parties are slipping on right now.
From our perspective, the right answers don't really seem that slick. Then again, we're not financed by oil company lobbyists.

Tax Cutting Off Their Head

It's been a while since we trained our collective ire on the idiot Governor of Nebraska, Dave Heineman - who we doubt, after that comment, will ever invite us to any events at the Governor's mansion. If our goal was to grow a better relationship with him, you could even say our initial comment would be akin to cutting off our nose to spite our face.

Of course, after the proposals Gov. Heineman came out with in last month's 'State of the State address', we think he knows all too well what cutting off one's nose to spite one's own face feels like.

In case you missed it, Nebraska's Governor Dave Heineman gave Nebraska's 'State of the State' address to open the 2012 legislative session in Nebraska. In his address, Heineman proposed MASSIVE tax cuts, including the elimination of the Inheritance Tax, as well as cuts to Medicare.

In short, the Governor's proposals are ridiculous, especially in light of the massive budget cuts and fiscal struggles the state has faced over the last few years.

We're willing to acknowledge the Governor's claims about Nebraska's overall economy - that, in comparison to many places in the U.S. that took a significantly harder hit than Nebraska did during the Lesser Depression, Nebraska has a relatively low unemployment rate, a balanced budget, and a respectable cash reserve.

That doesn't mean that Nebraska's cities and counties are willing or able to take a massive hit to their own revenue streams at this point in time. Yet, by proposing to get rid of the Inheritance Tax, slash corporate taxes, and cut other tax rates, that's exactly what Heineman is suggesting Nebraskans do; hurt their own counties and towns, so that well-to-do Nebraskans wouldn't have to pay as many of those pesky tax dollars to the state.

Of course, their local property taxes would have to go up with double-digit increases. But, hey...! Governor Heineman and the state senators couldn't then be blamed for all those damn high taxes! If road maintenance, or courthouse hours would need to be eliminated? That wouldn't be the Governor's problem.

If our tone seems a bit sarcastic today, excuse us if we're both angered and confused.

The reasons for anger should be easy to see. The Governor's proposals are ludicrous, and would only really make political sense if he was attempting to appeal strongly to the extremists on the far right of his party, in a year when he was running for re-election.

Heineman is term-limited, however - which is where our confusion sets in.

For a major political figure who can't go any higher in Nebraska politics, Heineman appears to be carrying an unusual amount of political water for the Republican Party. If we didn't know better, we might even think Heineman's true goal was a cut of a different kind - like a cut of political power at the national level of his party.

To many Nebraskans, even Republicans, that tactic reeks of the same cut-and-run political style other former famous Nebraska Republicans have used to get themselves cushy jobs outside of the state.

Regardless of what Heineman's true intent is, we hope that Nebraskans look hard at the damage that has already been done by years of tax cutting, without investing in our communities.

We just hope they don't buy the ridiculous slab of spoiled bacon the Governor is trying to peddle.

Menu For Disaster

Even as the growing Chris Christie scandals continue to dominate national headlines, secondary stories about inequality and corruption are combining with the Christie saga to draw a serious and worrying trend.

For example, the West Virginia corporation responsible for the recent chemical spill that left hundreds of thousands without access to clean water just filed for bankruptcy, apparently as a ploy to fund another corporation owned by the same wealthy but corrupt people. Apparently in America today, if you're a corporation, wrecking the ability to use one of the basic resources of life for hundreds of thousands of Americans for more than a week is just another way to finance your next selfish, destructive venture.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the MLK holiday, a report by Oxfam that shows the richest 85 people in the world now have as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people on Earth, and the rush of Americans that finally have health care insurance thanks to Obamacare and Medicaid, the negative pattern we're seeing is clear to us.

It might not be clear to everyone, however.

That's why, in situations like this, it's helpful to have the example of someone like Nebraska's Governor Dave Heineman - a political leader who wants to believe a study that says he should get a $3.5 million taxpayer-financed new plane. Meanwhile, nearly 100,000 of Heineman's constituents still don't have health care under Medicaid, thanks to him ignoring another equally legitimate study.

That this same Republican governor is also attempting to bully the legislature into using Nebraska's cash reserve for tax cuts for wealthy landowners (with a little bit for the rest of us) shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with similar behavior patterns. It should be noted that Gov. Heineman approached the Nebraska legislature with a similar tax-cutting proposal last year, and after a thorough study, the Legislature - including many members of his own party - effectively told the governor to go pound sand.

Indeed, if Nebraska ends up this summer suffering the kind of drought already affecting California, Nebraska will need all the money currently in its cash reserve, along with a whole lot more. The drought from 2012 cost Nebraska farmers and the state's economy hundreds of millions of dollars - and the official seasonal drought outlook for half of Nebraska is already predicting the early part of this year to be dry.

As we and others have said more than once, when people show you who they are, believe them. What our political leaders in America, and especially in the Republican Party, are showing us in New Jersey, and in more subtle ways in Nebraska, should now be obvious to most people.

When it comes to the already rich and powerful, many of these folks believe that our collective society's resources are exclusively theirs, to be used, abused, and selfishly hoarded. Meanwhile, facts and studies prove those resources, if used judiciously, honestly, and truly conservatively, can provide benefits like health care to most people, without worrying about running out of money.

But many of those in power would prefer the poor and working classes simply get lost.

Is it any wonder then, that in the latest Gallup poll on economic inequality, 67% of Americans are angry with how our nation is distributing our wealth, from the poor and working class to those selfish fools who are already more than wealthy enough.

It's long past time for those feasting on the benefits provided by the rest of us to be excused from the public trough.

Fighting The Inevitable? Do the Math.

Several times over the last few years we've kept you up to date with the skirmish over installing the Keystone XL pipeline through Nebraska - and over the world's largest underground freshwater body of water, the Ogallala Aquifer. Polls have proven what we already knew - a majority of Nebraskans do NOT want the pipeline where the oil company wants it to be. TransCanada, the company trying to drive the pipeline through Nebraskans seems confident that they'll succeed in jamming the pipeline through. There are even indications some State Department personnel may have acted as internal lobbyists - and may have possibly been bought off.

In theory, the State Department is supposed to be listening to what Nebraskans want or don't want from the pipeline, at two hearings scheduled this week in Lincoln and Atkinson.

Many don't believe the State Department is listening at all. Contrary to the rosy picture some media outlets are attempting to propagandize with, the pipeline won't create very many jobs for Nebraska workers. Labor unions have been duped into thinking Nebraskans will get long-term stable, good paying jobs from this project. Most welders and installers will be brought in by the TransCanda corporation from outside the state, just as they've done elsewhere. Even IF the pipeline is allowed to be built, once the initial construction is completed - in little more than two years - those jobs will all go away.

Any claims that the Keystone XL pipeline will generate energy for the U.S. for years to come are also a load of bull. When oil is sold on the world market, it isn't labeled 'American' or 'Saudi'. Companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron sell any oil pumped in America at the going global rate - a rate determined mostly overseas by OPEC - and America doesn't get a discount because it's buying oil that was pumped here.

Further, as we already noted earlier this year, if there is an oil spill that gets into the Ogallala Aquifer we could be making the Great Plains an uninhabitable wasteland. Farmers, ranchers, and everyone else living in an area from North Dakota to Texas, and from the Rockies to the Missouri River could be forced to find a different source for drinking water and agricultural irrigation if tar sands oil leaks into the aquifer.

If you go to the meetings this week, we don't recommend trusting TransCanada's assurances about how safe they can be. TransCanada's rival, Enbridge, still hasn't cleaned up their "small" oil spill in Michigan from last year - the same kind of incredibly toxic tar sands oil TransCanada wants to pump across the Ogallala Aquifer. Formerly pristine Michigan wetlands that were perfect for hunting and fishing are still damaged, and don't look to be cleaned up in the forseeable future.

The disaster on the Yellowstone River in Montana that TransCanada promised would be safe is even more serious. That oil pipeline has now been turned back on after being reburied deep enough so that when it leaks, no one downstream is likely to know for years. Folks in every state along the Missouri and lower Mississippi would be wise to test their water quality far more often than they do now.

All of this unnecessary risk over an energy source that won't do anything to curb America's addiction to oil, makes little sense.

Meanwhile, the Chinese expect to grow their solar power use by over ONE THOUSAND PERCENT in the next four years. Chinese government officials are literally laughing at America's failure to jump on board the green energy technology explosion. Back at home, right-wing extremists continue desperately trying to claim Solyndra was a failure of the Obama Administration, even though much of its support and loan money was authorized under the Bush regime.

Regardless of what the paranoid idiots claim, the mathematical facts regarding the U.S. energy situation haven't changed.

Solyndra was only ONE of forty alternative energy companies our government supported - and the others have all succeeded to various degrees. The green economy will easily overcome Solyndra's bankruptcy. Meanwhile, an oil company responsible for both major and minor oil disasters in the last few years is supposed to be given a hands-off approach to endangering the primary water supply for millions of Americans living in the center third of the country? That doesn't compute.

When you add up the risks of endangering the food and water security of America for generations while possibly depopulating the entire central United States, against a few hundred short-term jobs that might not even go to Americans who live in the area where the work is planned, we just can't see the benefits.

Do the math, folks. Kill the pipeline, before it kills us.

No Further Explanation Needed

Since once again our crack (or maybe "on crack") major national media spent an inordinate amount of time over the last few days covering the Casey Anthony trial - an event that wasn't really first-tier national news - you may not have heard about the massive oil spill, courtesy of Exxon Mobil, in the wilds of Montana, on the Yellowstone River.

We would be extremely surprised if the corporate executives at Exxon didn't prefer to have their story buried.

Sadly, none of the news we've found about the current ecological disaster has surprised us. First, Exxon said it was just a small spill, nothing to worry about. Then, when pressed, they admitted that the spill could easily go far beyond their initial 10 mile containment zone. This isn't just any zone, mind you. That zone is the Yellowstone River, which flows out of the famed Yellowstone National Park, that contains some of America's most important natural scenery and wildlife.

As we have grown to expect from oil companies like Exxon Mobil, no contingency plan seems to have been crafted, in case a spill like this should happen  - which it obviously did. While the cleanup continues, the company still does not have a repair strategy for the "leak."

Montana's Governor Schweitzer did tour the spill site, and said the cleanup effort was "pretty good" so far - but if the oil companies had been doing their jobs properly, it never would have happened at all.

Anyone who understands geography and is aware of the weather in the U.S. this year should understand with astounding clarity, that what happened in Montana won't stay in Montana. Some oil will slip through - and any chemicals like the carcinogen Correxit, used during the Gulf oil disaster of last year, that are dumped into the water to break up the oil, will flow downstream.

Downstream, through a series of rivers and tributaries that are sufffering through some of the worst flooding in history.

Through the flooded city of Minot, North Dakota, down the Missouri River, through the flooded river towns of South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska. Down into the state of Missouri - and then into the Mississippi River, where the remnants of the oil spill can poison even more fish, farmland, and wildlife, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

For those Nebraskans who keep looking at the proposed Keystone XL2 pipeline, and can only see short-term dollar signs, we invite them to speak with the folks in Valdez, Alaska, people throughout small towns on the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans - or even scientists in Nebraska. The stories of increases in rare cancers and odd health problems is rampant, the economic problems continue, and there seems to be a never ending flow of damaged humans, animals, and landscape in those areas.

If we seem to be against the proposed pipeline project, and a little overprotective of the Ogallala Aquifer, we are - and we can't see how everyone else isn't as well.

Without the clean, life-giving water the aquifer provides to Nebraska and most of the Great Plains, our home region of the U.S. would be a desert - one where people could not survive, long-term. This isn't hyperbole; that region has experienced severe drought before, a chunk of time so damaging it earned its own derogatory nickname: the Dustbowl Era.

An oil spill in the aquifer could mean the poisoning of the water that gives life, not only to the people and animals of the Great Plains, but also to the crops that feed our whole country and much of the world.

It is time we abandoned the Keystone XL project as a state, and began actively investing in alternative energies like wind and solar - both of which, as Nebraskans, we know we have an abundance of.

This isn't some far-left wing, pot-smoking, hippie idea.

This is our life, and our home. It's time to put our families and our country ahead of corporate profit and short-term economic gain.

The Village Idiots Have Returned

Between the ongoing 'Bridgegate' scandal of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the mass destruction of water supplies in West Virginia, and the Republicans in the U.S. Senate shafting more than a million Americans by not extending unemployment insurance, our attention has been a bit distracted over the last day or so.

Those stories have somewhat crowded out other critical domestic news, such as the Federal Appeals Court in Washington, DC killing internet neutrality, or the House passing its part of the $1.1 trillion federal budget bill. You also might have missed some critically important foreign news stories, like the "Imprison The Gays" law in Nigeria, the ongoing war in Syria, or the tentative and early stages of the nuclear peace deal with Iran.

While all these stories have been competing for our attention, the political clowns and bullies from our home state of Nebraska have also been pulling some significant focus of attention from our staff over the last day or so.

We've never been in favor of the kind of bill proposal Nebraska state Sen. Mark Christensen introduced Tuesday, to arm school teachers with concealed handguns. We thought it was a clownish approach to school security when Sen. Christiansen proposed a similar bill in 2011. After both Antoinette Tuff in Georgia in August of 2013, and John Masterson in New Mexico this week both stopped school shooters without being personally armed, our point is validated that schools do not need more guns to stop gun violence.

Sadly, we doubt any facts on this issue will prevent Sen. Christiansen from shooting his mouth off about the topic, on his way to another likely failure of his proposed legislation.

Returning to previously failed ideas seems to be a hallmark of Nebraska's political class of clowns and fake tough-guys.

In that vein, Nebraska's little bully of a Governor, Dave Heineman, was the perfect example of this personality defect as he gave his State of the State address on Wednesday. Regardless of the report that was just released last year - after months of study by the Tax Modernization Committee - that said the state of Nebraska should NOT give a deep tax cut, Governor Heineman is now insisting that Nebraska lawmakers ignore the facts of that study and toss a tax cut to the kinds of folks he likes best.

Likely, those people include the already incredibly wealthy and astoundingly ignorant scion of the family that created TD Ameritrade, Pete Ricketts. Ricketts, who is attempting to buy his way into the Governor's mansion this year, also received the kiss of death/political endorsement of Wisconsin's extremist teabagger governor, Scott Walker, on Wednesday - effectively sealing his fate one way or another.

With all of these crazy stories, and even crazier politicians, it's a wonder our editor Amy even had time to give birth on Wednesday afternoon to a healthy five pound, twelve ounce baby girl.

Congratulations Amy & Eric. You take care of your girls at home - we'll keep an eye on the clown show while you're away.

When You're In A Hole...

In an election season with an economy still recovering from the worst failure by Wall Street since the Great Depression, and during the same year that saw the worst oil disaster in history, we'd hoped to hear a few new ideas this fall. We thought it would have made sense for candidates to be talking about jobs programs, fixing the problems with the banks, mortgages, and corporate America.  We even thought energy and environmental issues might be on the table.

Instead, for the most part, we've had "I'm not a witch", and "Aqua Buddha", while outside interests from who knows where have attempted to buy our midterm elections out from under the American people.

In a few rare cases, there have been candidates seriously debating substantive issues, and we applaud those few who have done so.

However, the most important discussion we've heard on energy, the environment, and jobs recently has been from two incumbent U.S. Senators, neither of whom is up for reelection.

At the end of last week, Nebraska Democratic Senator Ben Nelson and Republican Senator Mike Johanns both announced they had significant concerns with the proposed Keystone oil pipeline being built by a Canadian company. The pipeline's proposed route travels from Canada through Montana and South Dakota, across Nebraska, then down through Kansas and Oklahoma to Texas, where the raw crude would be refined.

Currently, the proposal also takes the pipeline through the Nebraska Sandhills, a large area of incredibly porous soil and rock, that sits on top of the Ogallala Aquifer. That aquifer isn't just any insignificant underground puddle. It's one of the world's largest underground sources of water, and provides water suitable for agriculture or drinking for eight states throughout the central portion of the U.S. Without the aquifer, some of the most fertile farmland in the country would dry up and turn into desert.

The company attempting to build and operate the pipeline is the same company responsible for the disastrous oil spill in Michigan this past July, that ranks as one of the worst disasters of its kind in the Midwest.

For now, the Keystone pipeline project has been put on indefinite hold, in part due to the Senators from Nebraska, and in part due to significant trouble the oil company is running into in the wake of new Federal regulations imposed by the Obama administration. Those delays may not hold forever, though, as Sec. of State Clinton mentioned late last week.

It's these kinds of incredibly important issues that we wish we'd seen and heard far more debate over this election season.

If there is a candidate you can vote for, who seriously tackled an issue of this importance, and came down on the correct side of the issue?

We recommend you vote for them as soon as possible. That is, if an actual candidate like that exists where you are.

A Reason For Pipe Dreams

While Sochi, Russia may be a computer hacker's paradise, and many of its venues appear nowhere near ready for the crush of people already arriving from around the world, the 2014 Olympics has already begun in Russia, for better or worse.

For many years now, the Olympics have given our staff members a collective mix of both hope and sorrow. On the negative side, it's true that the Olympics in Sochi are the most expensive in history, cost over $50 billion, and were way over budget. Folks tend to forget though, that London's Olympics in 2012 were also over budget, as most Olympic events always are.

The history of cost overruns and ill-prepared host venues often gives rise to an idea around the beginning of each Olympic games, of a permanent home, or possible multiple rotating permanent homes around the world. As the editors of Bloomberg News noted, this year's games haven't been exempted from that idea reappearing.

Regardless of the problems with the Olympic games, there is a positive side to them as well. The Olympics almost always give people from all over the world a reason to stop, pause, and come together over a common unifying topic - kind of like the bad weather has done this winter for people across America.

From the record warm winter weather in Alaska, to the severe drought in the Western U.S., to the massive snowfall in the northeast, most of America has been talking about the same subject for a couple months now: The weather.

Frankly, if it was up to us, we'd be more than happy to share some of the snow we've had near our DC offices with friends of ours that live in California. We've even known people to toss around the idea of massive water pipelines criss-crossing the country, to take the excess moisture from those that don't need it, to those that don't have it.

As far as pipelines go, if some labor unions - like the AFL-CIO - want to get behind a pipeline idea that won't further endanger the environment, California's Gov. Jerry Brown has the perfect project for them.

Gov. Brown and other California officials are proposing two massive pipelines to carry water from Northern California to Southern California, and through the desperately dry Central Valley region of the Golden State. While the ideas currently being proposed are a bit farfetched, we see no reason that pipelines couldn't be connected directly to the ocean, run through desalinization plants, and then pumped inland to where the water is truly needed.

One member of our staff has thought for years now a massive pipeline, or even a man-made river should be built along the border between Texas and Mexico. A project like that could carry water from the Gulf of Mexico, along the Eastern edge of the Rockies, all the way up into Nebraska and the Dakotas. It would not only alleviate the perpetual drought problem in places like West Texas and the Oklahoma panhandle. It would also allow farmers and businesses to stop draining the Ogallala Aquifer nearly dry in some places, and make the breadbasket of the nation viable as a place to live long into the future, even with the effects of climate change.

We realize such ideas are - quite literally - pipe dreams. From a permanent sustainable, truly safe and open home for the Olympics, to a nationwide American water pipeline network, the chances of either major idea happening anytime soon are highly unlikely.

Like the games themselves though, both ideas give us hope. In the end, that may be the most redeeming perpetual feature of the Olympics.

It's No Joke - Spring Is Coming

For some of our staff and readers who live in the Midwest, so far spring 2013 hasn't exactly put a lot of bounce in our step. In fact, every time the temperature gets seasonably comfortable, everyone begins to cringe, as though they're just waiting for winter to jump out from behind a rock and maul the fair maiden of spring once again.

From the snowbound doubleheader at the Rockies-Mets game last week, to the spring snow storms that hit Kansas and Colorado, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota this month, Midwesterners have had good reason to fear that winter will never go away. Even now, a hard freeze overnight Tuesday into Wednesday in Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa will leave daytime temperatures today far cooler than they should be for this time of year.

Not surprisingly, the anti-science idiots who insist climate change isn't real are crowing with glee once again, in the shadow of Earth Day 2013 (which was Monday, April 22). They continue to insist all this cold weather must mean that global warming isn't happening.

As we reminded them and you last year on Earth Day, there is a difference between climate and weather - and this year, that difference is more important than ever.

While the weather in the Midwest this spring may have appeared to be colder and wetter than normal, the climate for the region is still warmer - and drier. In fact, according to a report released recently by NOAA, and made understandable by the Pulitzer Prize-winning InsideClimateNews, 2013 looks to be another bleak and desperate year for drought conditions, comparable to the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.

Thankfully, there are some state governments that are grudgingly moving forward on climate change legislation, that primarily focuses on the most important potential problem created by climate change in landlocked regions like the Midwest: water. Even in deep red conservative Nebraska, lawmakers seem to clearly understand that without access to clean, drinkable, useable water in the Midwest, everyone and everything will be dead.

We're not going to tell you that any level of government in the U.S. has been perfect on environmental issues. President Obama has been more successful in his environmental initiatives than most liberals will give him credit for - especially with the obstructionist Republicans in Congress he must deal with. Still, we expect more from him, and from all areas of government.

Those who care about the environment may get more help soon on crucial issues, in light of the EPA's harsh review of the State Department's flimsy Keystone review, and the million-plus citizen responses against the Keystone pipeline that the State Department received during the official public comment period.

No matter what the weather is outside, or what the anti-science idiots are saying, the fact remains that environmentally sensible decisions will often lead to positive outcomes in the long term.

It's also true that in the long term, spring will eventually come back to the region. As the old joke goes, why wouldn't spring come to the Midwest? It's already been everywhere else.

Keeping Our Heads Above Water

The disgusting display put on by the media this week had us looking hard at our choice of topics today.

So much of the media is continually lost in the never-ending circus of stupid that surounds Sarah Palin. We could have focused on former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher blowing off Palin, or equally laughable Michele Bachmann and her staff dissing Palin as "not serious." We could have even ridden the story about Sarah Palin's idiotic alternate version of Paul Revere's ride, and her deluded followers. Half the media rolled in that story over the last few days - and the other half thought about it.

We could have focused on the sad and twisted story in Florida, about a dead child, and the mother who is being tried for her daughter's murder. Of course, since CNN Headline News focuses on that story every five minutes, all day, every day, there's really no point in anyone else even mentioning it.

We also could have focused on Congressman Anthony Weiner again - why not? After all, so much of the media is still obsessed with Weiner's wiener, it would be easy to slap some digital ink into another cartoon and throw some cheap shots at a Congressman, like most of them are doing.

Of course, as we pointedly noted yesterday, we'd like to think we're better than that.

From Montana, through the Dakotas, through parts of Minnesota, all over Nebraska and Iowa, and into Missouri, the effects of global climate change, in the form of massive flooding, is making its presence known.

While the chance of an event like the tsunami and earthquake combo that hit Japan this year is nearly zero, at least one nuclear power plant, in Nebraska, is already being affected by the flooding. Drinking wells are endangered. Some river towns are already under inches - or even feet - of water.

These events won't be like the tornadoes that plowed through Joplin and Tuscaloosa, a short, sharp strike of massive damage, and then the clean up begins. Officials are saying the Missouri River flooding could last into mid-August. That will destroy the crops of countless farmers along the river, for this year, and maybe for next year too.

There are still a few idiots that continue to deny climate change exists, and is happening now. Stories that allow them to continue their denial - like the report issued recently that claimed rising forest density is offsetting some effects of climate change - are all they need to keep their rejection of reality going.

The fact is, as climate change has happened, scientists are seeing a faster release of carbon emissions - which only makes the problem worse.

Don't expect to see the governments of any nation doing anything to help the situation, especially at the UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany this week. While Mother Nature's warnings grow louder, that humankind must work - together - to help arrest severe, rapid global climate change, the only thing many humans seem to want to do is expect sacrifice from others, and ignore what they can do themselves.

Strangely, that disgusting display of selfishness may yet be the thing that saves us all. According to a new study, as nations are seeing and hearing more about massive climate change, and are noticing more disasters in their own backyards - like massive flooding, severe storms, huge wildfires and drought. As a result, many nations seem to be picking up speed, adding more legislation, and making moves to lessen their own effects of carbon pollution.

Sadly, America - once again, primarily thanks to our insane political right and our weak political left - seems to be lagging behind other nations in actually doing anything about climate change.

Getting Bumped

Somehow, the title of today's cartoon and commentary make perfect sense. Originally, we'd thought of talking about school being back in session, which led to thoughts of how testing is bumping actual teaching of the curriculum of schools across the country.

That subject got bumped when we were floored - almost literally - by the actions of Nebraska's Gov. Dave Heineman. Heineman shocked many of his fellow Republicans across the country when he came out AGAINST the Keystone XL pipeline on Wednesday. Heineman wrote a letter, calling on President Obama and Sec. Clinton to deny TransCanada the federal permit needed to drive the company's tar sands pipeline through the Nebraska Sandhills, over the fragile resource of the Ogallala aquifer.

Anyone who understands the process knows the filthy pipeline is likely a done deal -which makes Heineman's actions at this late date little more than political window dressing. He'll pass the blame on to the Legislature for not acting sooner to block the pipeline. Then Heineman will to try and cover his heinie with this last-minute opposition. Later, when the pipeline has a "leak" and destroys the water supply for all of Nebraska, at least his political behind will be covered - or so he appears to think.

As sad and disgusting as that story is, it still got bumped for the real story of the day - a story we have very passionate feelings about.

We can't even begin to say how annoyed and angry we are, primarily at the Speaker of the House, but also a little at the President's staff, after the events of Wednesday afternoon.

In case you'd been away from the media for the last few weeks - like Congress, who STILL are on their five-and-a-half week vacation - President Obama announced in August that NEXT week, the first FULL week of September, he was going to make a speech to the nation about jobs and the economy.

Since one of the primary problems in job creation in America right now is a do-nothing Congress that has the power to do much more than it has, the President decided he needed to address Congress AND the American people with his jobs message on Wednesday evening. The first day back to work for our representatives in Washington, after their five-plus week vacation is Wednesday, September 7 - NEXT Wednesday.

The President's staff knew that the next GOP Presidential Primary debate was also scheduled for that day. From all appearances, the White House had received proper assurances from the television networks that THIS President, like all Presidents before him, would be given preferential treatment as befits the office, and the GOP debate would be delayed slightly to allow the President to speak first.

The way the President's staff presented that knowledge to the country, however, left them open for the political disrespect they should have expected from the Republicans and John Boehner.

Sadly, like clockwork, the arrogance of the Republicans exploded as expected, with Speaker Boehner - for the first time in the history of the nation - declining the President's "request" to speak to Congress.

Agreeing to the request of the President is supposed to be a mere formality. When a President requests something of you - especially something as simple as showing up to perform the duties you were elected to do, after MORE THAN A MONTH OF VACATION, it is not, in our minds, a request.

The amount of disrespect shown by Republicans for the office of the President - let alone the disrespect they show the man who currently commands that position - by unilaterally rebuffing the man WHO IS ALSO THEIR PRESIDENT, is a disgrace. Their actions dishonor both the Congress and the country they betray when they claim to work for its benefit.

The President should have simply TOLD Congress that he WILL be addressing the nation from the floor of Congress next Wednesday night at 8 PM, Eastern time. Period. If the insolent, arrogant, ignorant, disrespectful, worthless Republicans in Congress didn't want to show up at that time to do the work they were elected to do, that would be their problem to live down to voters hungry for results in 2012.

Instead, once again, President Obama caved, an action we have seen far too much from him. Even if he's now moved his speech to Thursday, at least he's ready to get back to work.

America needs to get back to work. If Congress isn't, they can be replaced. After all, it's happened to millions of American workers over the past few years. Unlike the Republicans in Congress, THEY were ready and willing to perform their jobs, given the opportunity.

The Real Cost Of Quality Journalism

As another week begins, in the wake of another awards show last night, we thought about some of our colleagues in the media who really deserve awards, but won't likely ever get the kind of recognition you may have seen featured at the Golden Globes last night.

It's not easy being a journalist today, either in the U.S. or abroad. The wars abroad, especially the civil war in Syria, killed 70 journalists last year. That number doesn't even include those journalists jailed for simply doing their jobs, in places like Egypt. Domestically, Congress is still so bogged down with Republican obstructionism even K Street lobbyists are looking for side jobs. Both corporate media and politicians are also disgustingly beholden to ideological zealots like the Koch Brothers, making corruption in both politics and private business harder than ever for journalists to uncover.

If it were strictly up to the media minders at places like Fox, or some of the other right-wing media outlets, they'd keep the general public buried in nonsense, like the new book by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, or the latest hickup in the rollout of the Affordable Care Act - and not the serious corruption involved in two very major stories over the last week.

That's why we're incredibly grateful to ethical local journalists, and the ethical national journalists that followed the lead of the local reporters on both "Bridgegate" - the ongoing corruption scandal of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie - and the ongoing chemical disaster in West Virginia that's kept 300,000 Americans without any clean, useable water for nearly a week.

Gov. Christie's scandal, as we noted twice last week, is not only terrifying, politically. It's also nearly impossible to believe he didn't have some knowledge of what was going on. What should terrify Republicans even more is that as flawed as Christie's corruption scandal may show him to be, he is still considered the leading candidate for the Republican Party in the 2016 presidential race.

A similar kind of corruption has also become evident in the massive chemical spill in West Virginia. West Virginia officials knew about the very real danger of the coal mining chemicals Freedom Industries corporation was storing right next to the river that supplies drinking water for 300,000 West Virginians, yet they did nothing. Both local and national media outlets have asked the same very valid question: Why wasn't there a plan - and why wasn't West Virginia better prepared for such a spill?

That kind of hidden disaster, by the way, is the exact reason so many Nebraskans have absolutely no desire to have the northern leg of the Keystone pipeline driven through Nebraska - a fact we've made clear multiple times before. When - and it will be 'when' and not 'if' - that pipeline has a leak, it could poison the primary water source for hundreds of thousands of Americans throughout the Midwest, including the farmers who feed the millions of Americans across the nation.

Neither of these very real scandals would have been exposed without the efforts of quality journalists, who likely won't be featured on a major televised awards show anytime soon.

So later today, when one corporate media website or another tries to gin up interest or clicks hyping some fake fight between celebrities at the Golden Globes, or jumping up and down about the latest minor problem with Obamacare, remember who showed you the real scandals this past week. Then buy a copy of your local newspaper, or pay that small fee to browse your favorite news outlet online, willingly.

The cost of not paying real journalists is being buried in lies by those who are corrupt.

Hot Battered Corn

In case you've been spending your time stocking a freezer, or you've been on a trip to somewhere cold  - like Greenland - the unusual heat and drought conditions striking most of the U.S. have probably caught your attention.

Come to think of it, no matter where you've been on Earth lately, you've probably recognized that the long-term weather patterns aren't what they used to be.

For those ignorant corncob-chomping types at the neighborhood barbecue who continue to insist that this is just another heat wave like the ones that have come and gone for ages now, there was some serious news on Monday.

The National Climatic Data Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that for the first time in over fifty years, that more than half the U.S. is under moderate to extreme drought conditions. Further, those conditions don't look to improve this year. If you judge the nation under "abnormally dry" standards, more than 80 percent of the U.S. is in trouble right now.

In short, this isn't just another heat wave - and it doesn't just mean higher electric bills and more sunscreen.

Long-term drought, something much of the U.S. is hovering on the edge of, affects everything from paved highways to barge travel, from grocery prices to energy costs. Of course, the massive corn and soybean crops that have become a hallmark of America since World War II are also being seriously affected. As we noted last Friday, in our "Midwest Roundup" links, the state of Nebraska has shut off all irrigators, statewide, who claim surface water rights - that's more than 1100 farmers overall.

Admittedly, we've been stepping up our efforts this year to penetrate the thick skulls of climate deniers, so they understand that this isn't just another hot summer. Other media organizations have also been stepping up their efforts at educating and informing.

A recent poll from the Washington Post and Stanford University seems to show that those efforts to sow some real insight about climate change haven't fallen on completely deaf ears. Most Americans now understand climate change is real, and that major weather events like droughts are getting worse.

We don't mean to sound like some kind of monster, swallowing up all hope for a better tomorrow.

Even Republican surrogates for Mitt Romney, like former Deputy Secretary of Energy Linda Gillespie Stunz, have admitted that candidate Romney would be open to possible carbon-pricing legislation - the formerly Republican idea of "Cap and Trade."

Further, there are still plenty of technological innovations that we can develop and use to make our lives better. For example, anthropologists recently figured out the water delivery system for a 2000 year old Mayan village that was hit by drought for four months every year - but kept their people hydrated year 'round.

The point is, we all must be willing to accept that we have a problem and that we need to develop innovative ways to deal with the causes and effects of global climate change.

Especially if we'd all like to keep enjoying some of the best things in life - like eating hot buttered corn - instead of watching our corn crops be constantly battered by the heat.

Getting Rid Of The Weeds

As most gardeners who live in temperate climates know, every year about this time, after flowers and vegetables have begun to take root, small weeds often begin to appear. Sure, we can always till the soil, turn over the garden, add fertilizer, and even weed killer - but somehow, every year, no matter what, when everything else grows, so too do the weeds.

It's not entirely surprising then, that when our society also tries to grow and become more of what we already claim to be, that the weeds of our society also pop up.

That was definitely the case in Lincoln, Nebraska on Monday, as the City Council there openly debated enacting an expansion of their current ordinance that would broaden the protections to LGBT individuals - that is, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered people.

As Leslie Reed of the Omaha World Herald - who reported the hearing live on her Twitter feed - noted last night, 94 people signed up to testify at the public hearing, and the overwhelming majority of them were in favor of the ordinance. Omaha has had experience with this same expansion of protections, recently adding similar anti-discrimiation language for LGBT individuals, in housing, employment, and public accommodation laws.

As Ms. Reed's reporting made clear, and as similar responses to a comment made by Vice President Biden over the weekend made clear elsewhere in America, while some Americans still want to keep bias and bigotry in the law, most Americans don't really seem to. In our experience, most Americans seem to think people are people, no matter who they're attracted to. As long as people work hard, pay their taxes, don't break the law, and generally act respectful to others, most Americans don't seem to care about a person's sexual preference. Most businesses certainly don't. As one former business owner we know used to say, "As long as their money is green, who cares?"

Those who seem to be against the fairness ordinance Lincoln is trying to pass seem to be those individuals who want to continue to have the right to discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation. Sadly, many of those people are members of the clergy, who continually attempt to justify their bigotry by hiding behind theology.

As we noted nearly a year ago, when civil marriage passed in New York state, there is a vast difference between "civil marriage" and "religious marriage." There is also a vast difference between private bigotry and public interaction. When a city or a state makes a law denying bigots, racists, and other intolerant people the right to express their hatred through hiring practices, housing discrimination, or other business dealings, that doesn't mean the hatred itself goes away.

Like spraying for weeds in the spring, the underlying hatred, bigotry, and intolerance still remains in those people who are opposed to similar laws.

As we noted last week, this is America - those people have a right to hate whomever they want. If they want to hate, within the walls of their own organizations, on their private property, among their own members, they have the right to do so.

What they don't have a right to do is discriminate when they interact with the people of our cities, states, and nation. They use our public power and water resources, our streets, our telecommunications. They benefit from our system of taxation and property valuation, and our police, fire, and EMT personnel. Even their churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious facilities - all very much private sanctuaries - gain significant benefit from the society we provide for everyone's use.

If we are to claim that "All Men Are Created Equal", or like Nebraska, claim our motto as "Equality Before The Law", then we either have to grow and fully live up to that claim - or admit that we're hypocrites, with no real moral core, whatever religious label we claim to hold.

To us, voting in favor of a fairness amendment, as Omaha City Councilman Ben Gray testified Monday night, is a "no brainer."