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.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Thursday, April 12, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
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.
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.
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