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.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
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.
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.
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.
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