Showing posts with label legislature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legislature. Show all posts

Thursday, August 23, 2018

Jesus is just all white


Democracy dies in . . . Bayard.

Bayard?


Bayard, Neb. If you were in Bayard, you'd croak, too.

Religious services have not been finalized, but interment will be in the back yard of state Sen. Steve Erdman, R-Greater Nebraska Trumpian Reich, in a plot between those of tolerance and decency. Erdman indicated that the funeral would be a white, Christian one.

No word on whether the funeral luncheon will be scheduled for before or after the book burning and Two-Minute Hate of University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds.

From the Omaha World-Herald:
A western Nebraska state senator recently criticized the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s plan to hire a diversity vice chancellor, saying it bodes poorly for “white Christian conservative males.”

State Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard wrote in a column or letter last month to constituents that the NU system complains about inadequate state funding but it still has money for a “six-figure-salaried” person to assist with diversity.
Bayard, Neb. . . . The Florence of the high plains
Erdman said Wednesday that the reaction from some constituents was: “It’s about time somebody said something.”

The matter highlights some conservatives’ belief that universities are swarming with liberal professors who seek to indoctrinate their students. Edna Chun, a national consultant in diversity, said Wednesday that most universities have diversity officials.

NU President Hank Bounds said in a written statement Wednesday evening that he is proud that the university supports diversity. “Throughout my career, I’ve seen again and again that we are stronger when we serve alongside people who don’t look or think like us.

“I was shocked and deeply saddened when I read the column. For any elected official to champion these kinds of dangerous views only serves to damage our great state and our ability to recruit and retain the top talent that will grow Nebraska for the future.”

UNL has never had a vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion, although it has had employees devoted to those tasks. The vice chancellor is the first diversity administrator who will report directly to the chancellor.

The aim of diversity work, Florida-based consultant Chun said, is to broaden the awareness of all students and prepare them for a global society.

“The whole goal of it is educational,” Chun said. She said minority students can feel isolated when there are small numbers of them on a campus. Diversity and inclusion also refer to gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identification, she said.

UNL data show that last fall, minority students made up 14.3 percent of the university’s student body — 3,719 of 26,079 students.

Erdman said he wants no preferential treatment for anyone. “Favoring people by way of their genitalia, the color of their skin and their sexual orientation is as much an insult as discriminating against them for these very reasons,” he said in his letter, which he called “Straight Talk From Steve.”

His letter says he can envision “white Christian conservative males” being “excruciatingly scrutinized against the backdrop of the new Vice Chancellor’s extremist progressive worldview.”

Erdman said his views don’t come from contempt for any race. “I’ve got black friends. I’ve got Mexican friends,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “I look at them as being a friend and an American.”

But some Nebraskans are rebelling against the university’s liberalism, he said. An acquaintance told him his daughter changed her mind and isn’t interested in attending UNL.

“People are starting to wake up,” said Erdman, a 68-year-old retired farmer who sells some real estate. He said in his letter that a student who suggests that marriage is the union of man and woman in the future might be “beaten down by a torrent of LGBTQ complaints followed by psycho-analysis and reprogramming.”
Ground Zero: Senator fears UNL will rename his favorite cereal 'LGBTQ Loops.'

I'M SO OLD that I remember when Nebraska was better than this -- when western Nebraska was better than this.

I remember when there were Democrats outside Omaha and Lincoln. I remember when conservative outstate Nebraska was, by today's standards, vaguely "libtard" and RINO-ish. I remember when state senators from outposts like Bayard, hundreds of miles beyond the last traces of black Nebraskans, weren't angry nativist cranks.

Some were even moderates. Hey, it was the '80s. In 2018, moderates are the new communists to mouth breather-friendly politicians like Erdman.

And raving, paranoid projection is the new Keeping Your Powder Dry Until There's a Demonstrable Problem With the University's Diversity Program. But when you're playing to voters' prejudices and fear, you gotta do what you gotta do.

That would include accusing the University of Nebraska-Lincoln of the nefarious thing you're actually doing.  For example, note that Erdman is calling an unknown vice chancellor who hasn't been hired an "extremist progressive" based on non-existent things not yet done by the chimerical administrator. Just look:
The addition of a Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion also means that every word spoken by White Christian conservative males at the school will be excruciatingly scrutinized against the backdrop of the new Vice Chancellor’s extremist progressive worldview. For instance, any student who dares to suggest that marriage should be defined as the union between a man and a woman will quickly find himself being beaten down by a torrent of LGBTQ complaints followed by psycho-analysis and reprogramming. If the student doesn’t understand the underlying reasons for his stereo-typical beliefs, one will be provided for him.
http://news.legislature.ne.gov/dist47/2018/07/20/straight-talk-from-steve-63/
MY GOD. Sure, it could happen. Than again, maybe not. Actually, probably not. 

This is the demagogic, academia-bashing version of an old Southern tactic for getting rednecks and white trash all riled up . . . just in time for a political Great White Hope to "defend their way of life" at election time.

Southerners had a term for that. I'll not use it.

We wouldn't want to encourage Sen. Erdman to use that word in his next "straight talk" session -- no doubt justifying himself with "Black people use it all the time in rap songs."

Besides, they're all just commies, anyway. No, really:
Recent Left-wing movements, such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, have undoubtedly put tremendous pressure upon the administration to do more about diversity and inclusion. While nobody I know advocates for racial, gender or sexual orientation discrimination, we should still ask why NU needs a Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion, if not to impose favoritism upon these groups.
#MeToo? Being against sexual harassment and sexual assault is an ideological stance?

Outstate Nebraska sure ain't what it used to be.

Like much of rural America, it's emptying out. The young are leaving. The brains are draining. And the remnant is content to imagine itself superior to the citified sinners vilified by bumfuck mediocrities who imagine themselves leaders.

Increasingly, even in states like Nebraska, contempt is a two-way street. If rural Nebraska sees cranks like Erdman as features and not bugs, the day will come when it will end up with the short end of its own shtick.

Big time.

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Rep. Adolf Gump

I can't be sure, but a fat legislative Bubba from Georgia throwing it in reverse with his britches around his feet and trying to use his ass as a battering ram while screaming "AMERICA! AMERICA!" could be one of the signs and wonders Jesus told us would herald the Apocalypse.

It's in the Bible. Somewhere in the back.
THIS HERE? Also from Georgia. This fool is running for governor.

Oh . . . we sooooo doomed.

Wednesday, May 02, 2018

Your precious-feet pin won't get you into heaven anymore


Here's what it means to be a "pro-life" Republican politician these days in a most Republican state like . . . say . . . Nebraska.

(And, yes, I'm looking at you, Gov. Pete Ricketts, and especially you, Attorney General Doug Peterson.)

First, you make a lot of noise about "the sanctity of life." Then you advocate laws you damn well know will be shot down about 3.2 seconds after they land before a federal judge. This is fine with you, because then you can keep flogging the same ol' same ol' and keep raking in knee-jerk votes from knee-jerk voters. (Secretly, though, you worry that folks might realize someday that you and yours have accomplished absolutely nothing substantive on abortion since it became law of the land in 1973.)
 
After talking a good pro-life game about mamas, babies and the evil lib'ruls, you gut all the social programs that might make it easier for women to have and raise their children. Because pro-life.

Pro-life?

Forget it, they're rolling.

Then, you make sure Nebraska's gun laws are loose enough so folks can kill one another as easily as possible. After all, you're pro-life, and assault weapons are, too. Because God, constitutional rights and freedom.


Freedom!

After pro-life criminal elements commit pro-life homicides, pro-life law-enforcement officers catch the perpetrators. Then pro-life judges impose pro-life death sentences, all to demonstrate the sacredness of the sanctity of life. Because thou shalt not kill.

http://www.omaha.com/news/nebraska/nebraska-ag-sues-lawmakers-to-stop-death-penalty-questioning-of/article_5167cd28-0c49-5d75-899f-b69ff741187e.html
FINALLY, you have your corrections department try to buy lethal injection drugs on the black(ish) market because drug companies don't want your money -- or blood on their corporate hands. This is because they, no doubt, are anti-life pussies.

On your first foray into "Psst . . . you got the stuff?" you waste almost $28,000. Alas, the FDA was against you. So was UPS -- it sent your stash back to India for lack of proper paperwork.


Several years later, when you finally come up with the ingredients for a toxic cocktail, you find a legislative committee is wary enough to subpoena the corrections director to a hearing.
 

So, in the name of the rule of law and the sanctity of human life, you sue the legislative committee to keep the corrections director from appearing . . . or answering any questions about where he got the drugs. Or even what drugs the state bought.

Pro-life means never having to say you're sorry -- or anything at all, actually.

This all makes complete sense to me. Then again, I've been dropping a lot of the brown acid lately, man.


Pay no attention to the Mexican gorilla bench-pressing a cow. The socialist baby-killers sent them here to distract you. And the air tastes like Jesus. Squirrel!


God Bless America.

Tuesday, January 09, 2018

Get the hip boots and clothespins -- it's kinda deep in here

http://www.omaha.com/news/nebraska/ricketts-budget-plan-would-end-state-funding-to-health-clinics/article_2dbefe26-f4ca-11e7-8beb-3fb9246c159d.html
Today's Omaha World-Herald

“Nebraska is a pro-life state, and the state’s budget should reflect those values.”

Says the state's Republican governor in the latest Orwellian smoke signal he's trying to blow up our collective butts.

It's just bullshit. Bullshit so fragrant it could have come from America's bullshitter-in-chief, Donald J. Trump.

The state's budget under Gov. Pete Ricketts and his predecessor NEVER has reflected pro-life values, from wasting $50 grand in a botched attempt to illegally acquire execution drugs to cutting services for the disabled to (for a time) banning government-funded prenatal care for undocumented women (which actually increased both abortions and birth defects).

A pro-life state doesn't waste money on maintaining the death penalty, money that could go toward caring for "the least of these." A pro-life state doesn't have cops so ignorant of how to deal with unarmed but unruly mentally ill people that they end up tasing and beating them to death.

A pro-life state doesn't elevate to the governorship a rich-boy Dr. Evil impersonator who has no clue about governing apart from throwing his fortune behind initiatives repealing the unicameral's abolition of the death penalty and electing GOP legislators in his own misanthropic image.

SO DON'T HAND ME this hoary old horse hockey about "pro-life values" just because the dominant political party merely is foursquare for getting infants out of the womb just so it can find ways to abort the poorest ones by other means at a future date.

http://www.omaha.com/news/legislature/ricketts-announces-million-in-budget-vetoes-we-don-t-have/article_ba36577c-39aa-11e7-85bd-6f2370ce493e.html
Omaha World-Herald, May 2017
"Pro-life" is not some political zero-sum proposition. Pro-life is affirming that somebody doesn't have to die for somebody else to flourish. A pro-life state isn't just against abortion, but also is for helping women through hard times and bad situations in a way that affirms the life of both mother and child.

A "PRO-LIFE STATE"  fights hammer-and-tongs against poverty, and it guarantees every resident adequate health care. And a pro-life state doesn't skimp on funding for education at any level.

A pro-life state -- the kind the governor is talking about -- is all about the ironic air quotes, and it elects right-wing bullshit artists like Pete Ricketts to spout self-serving, self-righteous bromides as he kicks the poor and the inconvenient to the curb. To be aborted postnatally when nobody is looking.

No, you can't say Nebraska is pro-life. You sure as hell can say that Pete Ricketts is pro-death.

This isn't brain surgery (which I'm sure Ricketts wouldn't want state money going for, either). Don't pay for abortions . . . and don't use abortion as an excuse to cut health-care funding while simultaneously scoring cheap political points with the booboisie.

What a tool is our Gov. Evil.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

You gotta kill somebody


Yesterday, Nebraska had the death penalty. Today, it doesn't.

Be that is it may, the execution executive branch of state government isn't taking the unicameral's override of Gov. Pete Rickett's veto of legislation abolishing the death penalty lying down. On the question of making murderers dead -- despite Nebraska not executing anyone since 1997 and its problems obtaining the proper drugs for lethal injection -- Attorney General Doug Peterson's attitude can only be described as "never say die."

Because he wants to kill. Kill! KILL! KILLLLLLL!
Doug Peterson
One day after state lawmakers repealed the death penalty, Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson is questioning a portion of a repeal law dealing with the fate of the 10 men currently on death row.

But State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, the sponsor of the repeal law, said Thursday that the attorney general doesn’t have a case.

"There’s no legal issue here," Chambers said.

Peterson, in a press release, said its office, "at the appropriate time," will seek a court decision to resolve the state’s ability to execute those currently on death row.

He pointed to language in Legislative Bill 268 that states: "It is the intent of the Legislature that in any criminal proceeding in which the death penalty has been imposed but not carried out prior to the effective date of this act, such penalty shall be changed to life imprisonment."

"We believe this stated intent is unconstitutional," Peterson said.

Only the State Pardons Board, under the state constitution, can change a criminal sentence, he said, the Legislature cannot do that.

Chambers, in an interview, said he knows that and reflected that in drafting the bill. He said he also made it clear during floor debate on LB 268 that while the Legislature’s "intent" was that death-row inmates get life sentences, the body has no power to do that.

"Courts have always said that intent language has no legal effect," the senator said. "We recognized that the bill would not change the (death) sentences."

However, Chambers added, LB 268 removes the state’s method for carrying out a death sentence.

Because of the new law, the 10 men on death row would continue to have death sentences, he said, but the state would have no way to execute them unless the Legislature enacted a new method of execution.

"And the Legislature is not going to authorize any method of execution," Chambers said.
NOW, BEING that Nebraskans deserve full disclosure from its elected officials, Peterson should immediately reveal whether he ever sat on the Group W bench and, if so, for how long.

Friday, March 27, 2015

And the English ate Irish babies
because of Jonathan Swift's essay

"I believe this has crossed the line where we are endangering lives of those who wear a uniform to protect us. How can we expect a criminal – a potential criminal – who might want to commit a gun crime or any kind of crime against law enforcement, to read a transcript and try to understand context or hyperbole? Words matter. And Sen. Chambers said these words."
-- Nebraska Sen. Beau McCoy

Chambers' controversial remarks run from 51:06 to 58:36

Nearly a week after he said it, Nebraskans have decided to be outraged, horrified and morally offended by Sen. Ernie Chambers, who pointed out in a legislative committee meeting that ISIS wasn't a threat to ordinary folk in his district, but the police were.

In more than one case recently, this has been demonstrably true.

But something being demonstrably true in a nation that's seen a spate of unarmed civilians -- many of them black -- being killed by heavily armed police is no deterrent to Nebraskans when it's yet again time to hate on the outspoken man who for decades was the state's only African-American legislator, and now is one of only two.


And did I mention that it took people almost a week to get outraged over widely reported "outrageous" comments?

What people are saying is that Chambers said he'd shoot a cop because the cops are the equivalent of the worst sort of Islamic terrorists. What Chambers actually said is quite different.
State senators confronted Sen. Ernie Chambers Thursday during an extraordinary two-hour discussion about his remarks last week comparing police interaction with black citizens to ISIS treatment of its victims in the Mideast.

One freshman legislator, Sen. David Schnoor of Scribner, demanded the Omaha senator resign from the Legislature.

But Chambers dismissed insistent calls that he apologize or retract statements he made during a committee hearing last week.

His critics focused their criticism on a brief remark by Chambers that if he carried a gun -- which he doesn't -- and found himself confronted by a police officer, he'd want to shoot first and ask questions later, "like they say the cop ought to do."

Gov. Pete Ricketts weighed in on the discussion from outside the legislative chamber by issuing a news release urging Chambers to "issue a full apology for his remarks (and) condemn all violence against law enforcement."

During an interview after the Legislature adjourned for the week, Chambers said "there's not a person in my (legislative) district who thinks I would want to shoot a cop."

"The kids in my community are too smart to put that interpretation on those words," he said.

During the debate, Chambers said he's "used to be being piled on" after growing up as a black youth in a white culture and later during a public career of confronting senators in a Legislature in which he usually was the sole black senator. Two of the 49 current senators are black.

"I don't expect you to understand what I'm talking about," he said.

A number of senators who took exception to Chambers' comments last week defended his right to express his views even if they disagreed with him.

"It's a wonderful opportunity to pile onto Sen. Chambers," Sen. Dave Bloomfield of Hoskins said after the flood of criticism had begun.

"I do not condone what Sen. Chambers said, (but) let those among us who are without sin cast the first stone."

Chambers, he said, has "done a great service to this body for 40 years."

Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha said he now regrets that he didn't "nudge Senator Chambers and express my disappointment" when he made the remarks during last week's Judiciary Committee hearing, but he said he also needs to be prepared to call a colleague to account the next time he hears a reference to "a retard."

Sen. Ken Haar of Malcolm said he has heard a senator refer to people who receive public assistance as "leeches," and he reminded colleagues that Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, who initiated Thursday's debate, dismissively knocked a bobblehead doll rendition of President Barack Obama off a fence post in one of his 2014 gubernatorial campaign TV ads.


THIS AD.  I wonder whether McCoy regrets his symbolic act of violence against the president of the United States.

I wonder whether he wonders whether he planted a seed in the fertile soil of a future assassin's warped mind. Because, after all, actions matter. And Sen. McCoy whacked that Obama bobblehead.

I'm seeing people from politicians to regular slobs on Facebook demand that people like Ernie Chambers "walk a mile in cops' shoes." Bullshit.

You don't get to say that unless you equally insist that cops -- and Republican politicians, for that matter -- walk a mile in the shoes of Chambers' north Omaha constituents. So far, I haven't heard anybody meekly suggest that cops might, if they have time someday, and if it really isn't too much trouble, walk a block in the shoes of ordinary black folk in the 'hood.

Like people say, "Fair is fair." Unless that depends on what the definition of "is" is.

FOR THE RECORD, here is what Chambers actually said a week ago. Unedited for political effect or for outrage generation in the Internet age:
My ISIS is the police. And you know what the county attorney said, Don Kleine: If the officer makes a mistake, if he's wrong but he had reason to think that he was right, then he's clear. I cannot get away with that and shoot you and say, well, I thought he was going to do something. They say, uh-uh, buddy, that doesn't work. 

Well, now we presume that these officers are trained. To show how little their training means and how they hide behind it, some guy out east was fired because he was dealing with a guy who had a mental problem and wound up...he was on duty, shot the guy 14 times, and he was fired. Now he's trying to get his job back. And you know what the lawyer is arguing? And he's justified in view of the not finding any fault in what these cops are doing. He said, yes, he shot the man 14 times, but it was within his training. 

So now, if the police are trained to shoot somebody in the back, then the cop who shoots in the back says, it was pursuant to my training, and he's home free. That's what's happening. I would tell young people: If you tell somebody to go across the world to fight for ISIS, they can put you in jail if you just talk about it. If you want to fight injustice, don't...you don't have to go around the world to find the ISIS mentality. Your ISIS is in America and you're likely to die over there, one way or the other. So if you're going to die, die making your home safe. My home is not threatened by ISIS. Mine is threatened by the police. The police are licensed to kill us, children, old people. 

They showed a guy on a highway. The highway trooper, he had this elderly black woman down on the ground, just beating the stew out of her, and nothing was done to him. That's what I see. Now suppose somebody told me somebody from ISIS did that. Then everybody is up in arms: See what cowards they are? They beat women in broad daylight. But when a cop does it, it's all right. I don't feel that way. 

And if I were going to do something -- but I'm not a man of violence -- I wouldn't go to Syria, I wouldn't go to Iraq, I wouldn't go to Afghanistan, I wouldn't go to Yemen, I wouldn't go to Tunisia, I wouldn't go to Lebanon, I wouldn't go to Jordan. I would do it right here. 

Nobody from ISIS ever terrorized us as a people, as the police do daily. And they get away with it and they've been given the license now. And people don't like me to say this. Then you rein in your cops. And you know what they say, the racism of the cops is merely reflective of the racism in this society and they accept the existence of racism to excuse the cop. 

But then when I say there is racism in the society, they say, you're playing the race card, your talking about it makes it happen. But when they want to justify the cop, they say, he's merely reflective of the community where there is white racism. And that's what I look . . . you don't have to deal with that. You're privileged. You're free of that. You don't have to think about it every day. If I was going to carry a weapon, it wouldn't be against you, it wouldn't be against these people who come here that I might have a dispute with.

Mine would be for the police. And if I carried a gun, I'd want to shoot him first and then ask questions later, like they say the cop ought to do. But could I get away with it? You know I couldn't get away with it. They'd better hope I never lose my mind and find out that I'm on my way out of here. 
(Laughter)
NOW, WOULD I have made this point in the manner the senator made it? No. No, I wouldn't have.I always get into trouble when exercising my right to hyperbole. On the other hand, I suck at attracting attention, too.

But I will say this. If somebody shoots Ernie Chambers because of this latest God 'n' country "two-minute hate," I hope that when people riot, they burn city hall and the police headquarters in Omaha, and then the state capitol in Lincoln rather than lay waste to their own neighborhoods.

You never want to be your own ISIS.

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Messin' with Ernie: The allegory


The Nebraska unicameral disrespected Sen. Ernie Chambers.

You know what happens when you disrespect people in the neighborhood? Nothing good. That the good senator, a north Omaha legend, is twice as smart as your average legislator and 47 times more cantankerous only adds to the s*** sandwich the body is having to eat now down in Lincoln.

Above, this is illustrated in a manner the SWPL crowd can understand.

Below, the particulars from the Omaha World-Herald about how some people never learn. That's why they go into politics.
After a legislative meltdown that concluded just before midnight, state lawmakers were admonished Tuesday morning to show respect for their colleagues over the final four days of the 2014 session.

State Sen. Greg Adams, the speaker of the Legislature, rose at the beginning of the session on Tuesday to urge senators to work together, after an acrimonious session Monday.

“We have to demonstrate respect and do our very best to maintain the credibility of this body,” Adams said.

On Monday, tempers rose on the floor of the Legislature as the minutes ticked away on what was the last day to advance bills from first-round debate.

That prompted a scramble by lawmakers to get their proposals attached to other bills.

But standing in the way was Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha who attempted, for a third time, to resurrect his vetoed proposal to ban mountain lion hunting in Nebraska.

That effort failed once again, but in the process a bill that carried three measures to expand insurance coverage to sick Nebraskans was blocked from advancing, and may be dead for the year.

“I'm not going to get what I wanted, but a lot of you are not going to get anything,” said Chambers, as the minutes clicked off to midnight, when the legislative day ends and the Legislature adjourns.


THE BELLUM UNICAMERENSIS began after the legislature failed to override Gov. Dave Heineman's veto of Chambers' cougar-hunting prohibition bill. The senator thought he had the votes to make the prohibition state law despite the veto, but he ended up convinced that he'd been double-crossed by some colleagues:
Chambers said he thought he had enough votes to give Heineman another defeat Thursday, but he was derailed by some of his fellow senators.

Sen. Russ Karpisek of Wilber offered Chambers an apology on the floor, saying he had pledged to be the 29th or 30th vote. At the last second, however, Karpisek said, he “blew it.”

“I don’t like the bill,” he said, “but I did give my word, and I broke it.”

Chambers said others defected, but he named only Sen. Tom Carlson of Holdrege. Carlson, however, denied that he had ever told Chambers he planned to support the override.

Carlson, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee and a Republican candidate for governor, voted to send the bill to the floor and approved it on final reading. But Carlson said he then heard from constituents who opposed the repeal, so he told Chambers before the first override vote that he was switching sides.

Chamber said he replied, “You’re running for governor and you’re getting a lot of pressure, and you can’t withstand the pressure.”

Later Wednesday, Chambers asked Carlson if he would reconsider before the second override attempt the following day. Carlson said he would.

Chambers said he took that to mean Carlson would vote for the second override attempt. Carlson said he meant that he would rethink his vote — which he did, though in the end he remained opposed to the override.

Carlson said he did not appreciate having his character questioned by Chambers, whom Carlson said he sincerely respects for his intelligence and legislative experience.

“I’ve offended him and he’s offended me, and I’m sorry,” Carlson said.
NOT HALF as sorry as he -- and the rest of the unicameral -- would be.

You may not like Ernie Chambers' word, but he's a man of it. He does not suffer those who aren't men, or women, of theirs. (Actually, the senator doesn't suffer a lot of people, but that's not important now.)



YOU'D THINK Nebraska politicians would have learned that by now, more than 43 years after he became the first African-American elected to the Nebraska Legislature. And just like the hammer-wielding doofus who screwed with the smart phone didn't count on that lithium-ion battery blowing a gasket, the unicameral's bill-wielding doofuses who screwed with Ernie Chambers never count on the good senator blowing his.

Which is kind of like being shocked that August is hot.


This year, the short bus departs Lincoln on April 17. My guess is that Ernie will shove a potato up the exhaust pipe just before it pulls away from the capitol, much to the amusement of Nebraska's mountain-lion community.

Thursday, April 03, 2014

Louisiana: What doesn't kill you. . . .


If you are really good at something and really want to test yourself, move to Louisiana.

Anybody can be good at something if they have the right tools and institutional support. But only the
crème de la crème can be good at something in Louisiana, where you'll be looked upon with suspicion for your uppityness and be consigned to toil in decrepitude while officialdom spends taxpayer dollars on more important things than, say, education.

Like, say, graft.

Or, say, an archive in Franklinton dedicated to a former two-term Republican governor. Who happened to be the political mentor of the present two-term Republican governor, Bobby Brady Jindal.

I'm pretty sure of two things: First, that my home state has serious problems with priorities and, second, that the best ceramics artists in the universe are found at Louisiana State University. I know this about the LSU art school because its ceramics program is ranked ninth in the country, and the students and professors have managed to achieve that level of notoriety as they dodge falling concrete ceilings while fighting off rats, raccoons and fleas in the Studio Arts Building. That's no easy feat as you struggle not to inhale asbestos particles or ingest lead-paint chips.

And then there's the electrical wiring next to ceiling leaks.

And the broken windows, some of which won't lock.


And the flood-prone basement.

And the lack of climate control like, say, heating and air conditioning. Ever been to south Louisiana in  August and September? An art student fainted during class last fall -- the temperature inside was nearly 100 degrees, the (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reports:
Emily Seba/Facebook

Gleason said while she’s at the building she forces herself to take five-minute breaks outside. She spends about 26 hours a week there between class and work, and she worries the mold, asbestos and lead paint that LSU’s own facilities department confirmed is on most every surface might be harmful to her health. “It’s a concern,” she said.

When maintenance crews worked over the Christmas break to scrape asbestos off of steam pipes in the building, they removed some insulation, too. The steam got so hot, it ruined a student’s artwork nearby, Gleason said. These type of maintenance efforts occur regularly, costing a “couple hundred thousand dollars” a year, LSU Office of Facility Services Planning, Design and Construction Director Roger Husser estimated. His department, too, is eager to permanently solve the building’s problems rather than continue the Band-Aid method that’s driving up maintenance costs. But it’s not his call.
As the building’s conditions worsen, maintenance costs grow and students question their safety, renovation plans sit on the shelf, awaiting $15 million from the state needed for renovations. To show they won’t sit idly by as their needs get trumped by programs with big donors or lucrative ticket sales, students have planned protests on Thursday (April 3) at LSU’s campus and Tuesday (April 8) at the steps of the Capitol to ask for better working conditions and a safe environment.
But unless what’s sure to be creatively designed picket signs inspire a change in the political will of the Louisiana Legislature and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration -- their protests this week and next, according to one lawmaker, will be in vain.

Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, a self-proclaimed cheerleader for the arts who toured conditions of the Studio Arts building last fall, said if it were up to him the project would get the needed funding, but “a handful of legislators are not going to be able to (get enough support) to fund it on their own.”

Without private funding matches, the arts building simply doesn’t rise to the priority level of other donor-backed projects, which tend to get bumped up the list much faster. Though Husser said the Studio Arts building has been in the capital outlay queue for “a very long time,” if the state sees an opportunity to take advantage of private match, it will usually take it. But that means projects without donor support will keep slipping down rungs of the ladder as privately aided ones climb up. “The pie is not unlimited,” Claitor said. “The budget is tapped out.”




I WOULDN'T say the budget is "tapped out," exactly. It's just that everything else in the budget -- from Medicaid to masking tape -- has been deemed more important than giving art students at Louisiana's flagship university facilities fit for human habitation . . . as opposed to that of rats, raccoons and fleas.

Still, LSU's School of Art is fielding nationally noted programs. It's rather like winning Olympic medals in the 100-meter dash while dragging a boat anchor.

For three straight Olympics.


Writes columnist Stephanie Riegel in the Baton Rouge Business Report:
Since the early 2000s, the building has been slated for renovation. Several times, the project was designated as Priority One in the state capital outlay bill, meaning it was at the top of the list to receive construction dollars. One spring, it appeared so imminent the faculty was told to pack up their offices.

But, as so often happens, other needs took priority. This year, the project—now estimated to cost $15.3 million—isn't even included in the capital outlay bill, much less specified as an item likely to see a single dime.

"It's depressing," says professor Kelli Scott Kelley, whose critically acclaimed paintings hang in galleries around the country. "It affects morale. It affects the ability to attract good faculty and good graduate students."

Which gets to the heart of why this matters beyond, of course, concern for the well-being of students and faculty. There is a connection between a thriving art school at the state's flagship university and the community in which that school is located.

Consider what the arts have done for the revitalization of downtown and the role the Shaw Center for the Arts has played in bringing about that renaissance.

Think, too, about the near-obsessive fixation in this community for all things purple and gold—about the glowing headlines that follow when graduation rates inch up to 69%, or about the time and energy the university spends trying to earn a spot in the top quadrant of U.S. News & World Report's rankings.

Do top-flight schools have chunks of concrete falling from the ceiling? Are students at Duke or Vanderbilt or even the University of Alabama forced to paint in sub-freezing studios? Do you attract the best and brightest students by building a lazy river at the rec center while ignoring critical capital needs?
THE ANSWERS to Riegel's questions are an obvious no, no and no. Yet. . . .

As I said at the outset, if you are really good at something and really want to test yourself, move to Louisiana. Compete against the best. Do it while dragging a boat anchor. Win anyway. Come home victorious to the non cheers of the non-existent hometown throng of non-existent well-wishers.

If it's acclaim you want in the Gret Stet, be an LSU football player. That or an 86-year-old, ex-con ex-governor with a granddaughterly trophy wife, a new baby and an ego overdue for its 2 o'clock feeding.



Baton Rouge High, 2007
Kelli Scott Kelley, the LSU art professor, was in my graduating class at Baton Rouge Magnet High. And where she finds herself now resembles, and eerily so,  our alma mater before the parish school board was left with just two choices: Tear down the whole school and rebuild it somewhere else . . . or tear down and rebuild most of the campus, renovate the main building and keep BRHS where it was.

Thankfully, the board chose the second option. Baton Rouge High, after 30-something years of abject neglect, now has facilities worthy of the world-class teachers and students within its rebuilt walls. Our old school has shed its boat anchor -- for now.

In Louisiana, sadly, there's always another boat anchor to weigh you down. In Louisiana, fortunately, some folks find a way to stay afloat regardless.

Unfortunately for the state that forgot to care, however, many of those survivors soon enough will weigh anchor one last time before setting sail for a distant shore.


Guess what. A state that cares so little for its children . . . for higher education . . . for the arts . . . for its future . . . deserves exactly what it's going to get. Or not get, as the case may be.

Ask not upon whom the anchor weighs.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/659369154122784/?ref=br_tf

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The unimportance of being earnest


The Pillsbury Doughmagogue strikes again.

Let me explain Gov. Dave Heineman's latest smoove move as Nebraska's chief executive: It's as if Poppin' Fresh had appointed the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to the Confectioners Council a few years after the big guy got busted for spreading malicious lies about Mrs. Smith. And after he never got around to paying his fines for an unfortunate 1984 incident in Manhattan.

Of course, the press learns of the whole deal, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man abruptly withdraws, saying his dad had just been turned into a s'more. And Poppin' Fresh is left without even a hardy "Hoo hoo!" for curious reporters.

What the doughboy can't say is this, because it is true: "Who cares if the dude stinks up the kitchen? He's my kind of culinary hack!"

Or something like that.

I THINK you'll find my analogy reasonably close as you read about how terribly hard it is to be a D'oh!-magogue in a world where the press occasionally pays attention:
Shannon
Bellevue businessman Patrick Shannon said Monday the governor knew about Shannon's state fines for campaign violations before appointing him last week to the Nebraska Legislature.
Shannon withdrew Friday several hours after questions surfaced about an anonymous smear campaign he orchestrated against an opponent in a 2004 legislative race. Shannon cited a family medical emergency as the reason for his withdrawal.

Gov. Dave Heineman declined to say Monday morning whether he knew about the $16,000 in state ethics fines levied against Shannon before appointing him to the vacant District 3 legislative seat.
Heineman: D'oh!
“He's withdrawn, and we're in the process of finding a new senator to appoint to District 3,” Heineman said. “That's the most important priority.”

Later Monday, The World-Herald contacted Shannon at his Bellevue tax and accounting business.

Shannon said the vetting process for the appointment lasted about three weeks. It included a private, in-person interview with Heineman that lasted about 40 minutes and “one or two” follow-up phone conversations with the governor.
Shannon said during the in-person interview that Heineman questioned him about the $16,000 in fines.

“He told me he knew (about the fines) and asked what did I learn from it,” Shannon said.

Shannon sent an email to the governor's office Friday, stating he couldn't fill the seat because his father had “just suffered a heart attack” in Oklahoma and it would be necessary for him to help provide care for his mother.

In an interview Monday from his Bellevue office, Shannon said the heart attack was mild and his father had been dismissed from an Oklahoma hospital and was recovering at home.
OBVIOUSLY, what Shannon learned from the ethics fines was that if you don't pay them, nobody notices . . . or cares. What he also learned is that the governor doesn't care if his appointments stink up the unicameral, just so long as it smells like Republican hackery.

What I love about Nebraska -- and what has been its saving grace since Boss Dennison's fall from power in Omaha -- is that Nebraska pols are just so bad at this stuff. Would that all politicians were so utterly incompetent at all the right things.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Boing! Boing!


I could post depressing stuff, like how Nebraska's own Pillsbury Doughmagogue, Gov. Dave Heineman, has caught a bad case of Bobby Jindalitis and is proposing doing away with the state individual and corporate income taxes in favor of the solid-rock stability and progressiveness of sales-tax revenues.

I could, but that would depress you as much as it does me.


So, I don't know about you, but I'm up for some Gerald McBoing-Boing tonight. Pass the popcorn, willya?

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The smoking lamp is off

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The black eye the Pillsbury Doughmagogue got Wednesday from the Nebraska Legislature means that babies will live.

That Medicaid money will be saved.

And that, here in this beautiful corner of the Great Plains, the founders' words mean a little more than they did the day before.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Not white men. Not Anglo-Saxon men. Not American men.

All men . . . and women. And children in the womb.

ONCE AGAIN in this state, future American citizens in the wombs of their mothers -- whether those mothers be poor, undocumented or both -- won't be regarded by the state as throwaway stepchildren of a lesser god. No thanks to our petulant and Mexican-baiting governor, Dave Heineman, who consistently has seen feeding on the bottom as a sure path to coming out on top.

God don't sleep, and this time neither did the unicameral, which ended its session with multiple political bitch slaps for the Doughmagogue. The
Omaha World-Herald was there for the festivities:
Teary-eyed supporters predicted Wednesday that the Legislature's decision to restore taxpayer-funded prenatal care for illegal immigrants will result in fewer newborns with birth defects and fewer expenses for intensive care stays and delivery room complications.

“For the women, it means they won't have to worry anymore. They can come and get care,” said Andrea Skolkin of South Omaha's One World Community Health Center.

Lawmakers voted 30-16 to override Gov. Dave Heineman's veto of Legislative Bill 599.

The governor predicted that the 2012 legislative session will be remembered most for providing free health care for illegal residents while allowing cities to raise sales taxes on legal residents — referring to the lawmakers' override of another veto.

“I strongly disagree with their decisions,” Heineman said in a prepared statement. “Providing preferential treatment to illegals while increasing taxes on legal Nebraska citizens is misguided, misplaced and inappropriate.”

The vote on the prenatal care bill came at the end of the session's last day, providing an emotional finale to what has been a rough-and-tumble session.

“I like soft landings,” said State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, the speaker of the Legislature. “We had to foam the runways this year. But any landing you walk away from is a good landing.”


(snip)

A similar prenatal care bill was withdrawn from the agenda two years ago, lacking enough votes to pass. This year, a new estimate of the expected fiscal impact of providing the care placed the state's annual cost at about $560,000.

That was less than the cost to taxpayers and hospitals for just two cases of extended neonatal intensive care for babies born to women lacking prenatal care. One case cost more than $800,000.

Sen. Kathy Campbell of Lincoln, a leading supporter of LB 599, said charities and private donations cannot be counted on to finance the care.

Clinics in Omaha and Columbus reported dramatic increases in the number of women seeking free prenatal care, but also several cases of women skipping the care or coming in too late to address early developing problems in their babies. Health professionals have said that for every $1 invested in prenatal care, savings of up to $4 is expected.

“Fiscally, this makes sense,” Flood said. “This is an innocent child in the middle of a red-hot debate about immigration.”

Despite lobbying by Heineman and other foes of the bill, only one previous supporter — Sen. Tom Seiler of Hastings — switched from supporting the measure to opposing the override.