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NEWS FLASH

Nebraska Governor: Let’s Vote On Whether LGBT People Should Be Protected From Discrimination | After Omaha passed an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance in March, Nebraska attorney general Jon Bruning (R) issued an opinion that such policies were unconstitutional. Since then, Lincoln passed its own protections anyway. Now, Gov. Dave Heineman (R) believes both policies should be put “to the vote of the people.” In other words, Heineman believes that the majority should have the opportunity to vote on whether a minority is protected from the majority. Republicans claim to care about employment, but inviting voters to decide whether they want to be able to discriminate or not does nothing to help keep the LGBT community in their jobs.

Election

Karl Rove’s Secret Money Crossroads GPS Attacks Bob Kerrey For Supporting Bush’s Bank Bailout

By Josh Israel on May 18, 2012 at 2:30 pm

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE)

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE)

In late 2008, as the nation’s entire financial system stood on the verge of collapse, Democrats and Republicans came together to pass the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. President George W. Bush signed the bill, bailing out Wall Street banks who were up to their metaphorical noses in toxic assets. Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE), then a private citizen and college president, told Politico at the time that, contrary to 2008 presidential GOP nominee Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) earlier fears, the government intervention had been initially successful.

Now a secret-money outside spending group tied to Karl Rove, the man perhaps most responsible for the Bush presidency, is running a new attack suggesting that Kerrey had somehow acted inappropriately because he expressed his opinion.

War hero Bob Kerrey, after retiring from the Senate in 2001, is running to reclaim his old seat this November. The “issue advocacy” ad, titled “Disturbing,” says:

Bob Kerrey supported the Wall Street bailout while serving on the board of a company that tried to exploit it. Kerrey’s company tried a bureaucratic ploy to get bailout funds, but the ploy failed. These schemes were called a “disturbing trend” by an independent watchdog, violating the spirit fo the law to jump on the gravy train. For Bailout Bob Kerrey, it’s Wall Street ways, not Nebraska values. Tell him, support balanced budgets, not bailouts.

Watch the spot:

Nearly everything in this ad is disingenuous. The ad strongly implies that Kerrey had had something to do with the enactment of TARP. He was not a senator at the time, nor a lobbyist. The ad’s only citation for the argument is the 2008 Politico article in which Kerrey spoke positively about the bailout after the fact.

The insurance company mentioned in the ad — Genworth — was one that Kerrey advised, but did not control. It allegedly tried to buy a struggling bank to qualify for bailout funds — a move that even the watchdog concedes was totally legal. The group cited in the ad — the Project On Government Oversight — wrote to Congress: “We do not accuse these companies of wrongdoing in acquiring other financial institutions.”

If the secret funders behind Crossroads GPS bothered to look at the record, when Kerrey left the Senate in 2000, the budget was indeed balanced. Kerrey was the deciding vote in the Senate in 1993 for President Clinton’s budget reconciliation act, which set the nation on the path of deficit reduction (his yes vote, combined with the vice president’s, allowed Democrats to pass the bill without a single Republican supporter). In fact, he left a roughly $236 billion dollar surplus.

It was “Bailout Bush” and “Bailout Rove” who turned that the budget surplus into a $1.2 trillion deficit. What is “disturbing” is that Crossroads GPS is using money from undisclosed donors to run ads aimed at misleading voters.

Justice

Surprise Senate Candidate Deb Fischer: Destroy The Constitution Or I’ll Destroy The Economy

By Ian Millhiser on May 16, 2012 at 10:40 am

Yesterday, Nebraska GOP primary voters nominated dark horse candidate and state Sen. Deb Fischer as their candidate for an open U.S. Senate race this November. In choosing Fischer, the Nebraska GOP aligns itself with a candidate who recently called for a very high stakes game of chicken — flirting with economic catastrophe in order to force Congress to permanently enshrine Tea Party fiscal policy into the Constitution.

During last year’s debt ceiling crisis, which Speaker John Boehner has threatened to repeat next year, House and Senate Republicans threatened to force the United States to default on its debt — an outcome that would have caused “a bigger GDP drop than that experienced during the Great Recession of 2008″ — unless President Obama agreed to an increasingly escalating series of demands for austerity. Even after this campaign of extortion forced the White House to make significant concessions, Fischer indicated that she would have simply let the economy blow up because Congress didn’t also agree to a constitutional amendment:

Nebraska’s 2012 Republican Senate candidates turned thumbs down Monday on the compromise debt reduction plan agreed to by the White House and congressional leaders.

“I would vote no on this specific bill because Congress needs to pass a balanced budget (constitutional) amendment first,” said state Sen. Deb Fischer of Valentine.

It’s not clear which version of the balanced budget amendment Fischer is referring to here, but even the mildest forms of such an amendment are terrible ideas because they prevent the United States from responding to economic downturns or unexpected disasters, while simultaneously turning control of the nation’s budget over to unelected judges who are ill-equipped to handle it.

Moreover, at the time that Fischer endorsed blowing up the economy unless Congress votes to change the Constitution, the leading Republican proposal for such an amendment imposed such draconian spending cuts that it would “throw about 15 million more people out of work, double the unemployment rate from 9 percent to approximately 18 percent, and cause the economy to shrink by about 17 percent instead of growing by an expected 2 percent.” The lead sponsor of this plan to trigger a new Great Depression, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), also called for forcing a debt default unless Congress gives him everything he wants.

In other words, while little is known about the obscure state lawmaker who wants to join the United States Senate, her willingness to play chicken with America’s prosperity strongly suggests that she would line up with the most hardline members of the Republican caucus.

NEWS FLASH

Lincoln, Nebraska Passes LGBT Nondiscrimination Protections | The Lincoln, Nebraska City Council last night approved an LGBT nondiscrimination policy with a 5-0 vote, the two Republicans abstaining. Nebraska Attorney General recently offered an opinion that such municipal ordinances were unconstitutional, but the leadership in Lincoln was undeterred. Two conservative advocacy groups have pledged to reverse the decision with a public referendum, but they have only two weeks to collect 2,500 petition signatures. The Council heard seven hours of testimony last week, some of which was incredibly anti-gay and anti-trans. Blogger AKSARBENT has clips:

LGBT

Nebraska AG Bruning Says Local Non-Discrimination Laws Unconstitutional, Lincoln To Consider One Anyway

By Josh Israel and Zack Ford on May 7, 2012 at 11:20 am

Attorney General Jon Bruning (R-NE)

Attorney General Jon Bruning (R-NE)

In an advisory opinion issued last week, Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning (R) said that he believes under the state’s constitution, local governments have no authority to enact non-discrimination ordinances. This opinion came at the request of State Senator Beau McCoy, who had proposed legislation earlier this year to strip localities of that power, arguing that uniform state laws for businesses are better than piecemeal local regulations.

Omaha, the largest city in the state, recently enacted an ordinance protecting LGBT citizens from discrimination in employment and public accommodations. Lincoln, the state’s capital, says it will continue its previous plans to consider a non-discrimination ordinance — a public hearing on the measure is scheduled for this afternoon. Lincoln’s city attorney has taken a different interpretation of the state’s constitution, arguing that the city has the authority to pass the measure.

In their non-binding opinion, Bruning and his assistant attorney general write:

[I]t is our opinion that while political subdivisions may pass ordinances or other laws on the same subject matter which are not inconsistent with the state’s civil rights classifications, political subdivisions are not authorized to expand protected classes beyond the scope of the civil rights provided for in the state statute.

Their reasoning? Nebraska is generally a “Dillon Rule” state. Based on the reasoning of 19th century Iowa Chief Justice John Dillon, several states take the view that localities may only enact laws when given explicit permission from the state government. Other states, known as “Home Rule” states, let localities make any decisions not specifically prohibited by the state government. The opinion argues that, while Nebraska laws give some Home Rule authority to local governments, this falls out of their scope. Only voters, amending their city charters by referendum — or the state legislature — could grant protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

This is not the first time localities have been big-footed by their state governments, undermining attempts to protect LGBT constituents. In Virginia, for example, a Republican Attorney General used the same principles to dissuade Fairfax County’s school board from enacting a non-discrimination rule. Last year, Tennessee enacted a law stripping localities of the right to enact non-discrimination protections beyond the state’s protected catagories. And a 1992 Colorado referendum — later ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court — sought to nullify all local protections based on sexual orientation.

In Nebraska too, the question may eventually be decided by the judicial system. Omaha’s city attorney has said that Bruning’s ruling will change nothing without a court order, telling the press “If someone sues us, we’ll deal with it in court.”

Just 16 states and the District of Columbia provide legal employment protections for LGBT citizens (another 5 protect based on sexual orientation, but not gender identity or expression). That means that in most U.S. states, someone who is — or even seems to be — to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered may legally be fired or not hired purely on that basis.

In a sense McCoy is right — this is not an issue that should be dealt with by piecemeal regulations. It is time for Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to ensure that no American is fired just for being LGBT.

Security

Bob Kerrey: War With Iran Will ‘Make Iraq And Afghanistan Look Like A Cakewalk’

By Ali Gharib on Apr 25, 2012 at 1:55 pm

After a dozen years out of Congress, former Senator Bob Kerry (D) launched a bid to fill his old seat from Nebraska, replacing, he hopes, retiring Senator Ben Nelson (D). This week, the Kerrey campaign released a video staking out an unusually bold stance for a Congressional candidates: strongly opposing a war with Iran.

In the video, released Monday, Kerrey begins by lining up some of the extraordinary costs — human and financial — of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially the tolls these conflicts have taken on members of the armed services. Kerrey then puts Iran in context to these countries: “80 million people in Iran?” He then says of a potential large-scale war with Iran:

I think it would be a disaster. … It’ll make Iraq and Afghanistan look like a cakewalk.

Watch the campaign video:

The reference to a “cakewalk” should not be lost on anyone: that’s how Bush administration adviser Kenneth Adelman suggested an invasion of Iraq would play out. Nearly 5,000 dead service members and costs that could rise to as much as $1.5 trillion later, the Bush administration’s march to Baghdad was anything but the easy-going adventure they promised. Likewise, Iran hawks (many of them the same characters who pushed for the Iraq war) downplay the potential costs of war with Iran.

Kerrey’s entrée into the Iran debate seems particularly important, as journalist Jim Lobe points out, precisely because Kerrey, in the run up to the Iraq war, was aligned with the factions pressing hardest for an attack and invasion. Kerrey, a decorated Vietnam veteran and sometimes-hawkish Democrat, served on the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a neoconservative dominated pressure group that relentlessly pursued regime change.

A potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, and the nuclear non-proliferation regime, though U.S. and Israeli intelligence have not concluded that Iran has made a decision to pursue a weapon. The Obama administration vows to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the possibility, but the efficacy and consequences of a strike raise serious questions, leading the U.S. to pursue, for the meantime, a pressure track aimed at a negotiated resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Health

Republican Dominated Nebraska Legislature Restores Prenatal Care For Undocumented Immigrants

By Igor Volsky on Apr 19, 2012 at 10:00 am

Lawmakers in Nebraska voted 30-16 on Wednesday to override Gov. Dave Heineman’s (R) veto of legislation that would restore prenatal care with state and federal funds to “an estimated 1,162 unborn babies each year.” Heineman had rejected the bill because he claimed — falsely — that it would fund groups like Planned Parenthood, even though the organization does not provide prenatal services at its Nebraska clinics.

He condemned the lawmakers for providing “preferential treatment to illegals”:

“Today, the majority of the Nebraska Legislature decided their priorities are providing taxpayer funded benefits to illegal immigrants and increasing the sales tax rate on the citizens of Nebraska,” he said.

“Providing preferential treatment to illegals while increasing taxes on legal Nebraska citizens is misguided, misplaced and inappropriate.”

Interestingly, anti-abortion groups broke ranks with Heineman and pushed for the Senate to override the veto. “People from all different backgrounds came together and said this is about protecting the life and health of unborn children, and did not decide which babies deserve care and which babies don’t,” a spokesperson for Nebraska Right to Life said.

Related Posts

Health

NE Gov Vetoes Prenatal Care For Undocumented Women, Cites Nonexistent Planned Parenthood Connection

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Apr 16, 2012 at 12:02 pm

Gov. Dave Heineman (R-NE)

Gov. Dave Heineman (R-NE) vetoed a bill on Friday that would have restored prenatal care for pregnant women who are undocumented immigrants because, Heineman explained, some of those funds could wind up at groups like Planned Parenthood. “I oppose providing taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants,” he said in a press release. “I oppose providing taxpayer funding to vendors that perform or promote abortions.” A Planned Parenthood official said the group does not provide prenatal services at its Nebraska clinics.

But Heineman’s comments angered the bill’s supporters, including an anti-abortion group, and underscores a key debate surrounding the bill:

State Sen. Kathy Campbell of Lincoln, the chief sponsor of the bill, said she was “disturbed” that the comment about Planned Parenthood wasn’t raised until after the measure had progressed through three rounds of debate in the Legislature. [...]

Supporters and opponents of LB 599 agree on one point: It is a difficult issue that pits the protection of unborn babies against the distribution of taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants.

Heineman on Friday repeated his argument that taxes paid by “hardworking Nebraskans” should not be used for women who violated immigration laws, and that passage of LB 599 would make the state “a sanctuary” for illegal immigrants. [...]

While Heineman said it was not a “pro-life issue,” many supporters of the bill said that is the basis of their support.

“This bill fundamentally respects the life that is created,” said Omaha Sen. Jeremy Nord­quist, regardless of the mother’s immigration status.

The bill’s proponents say the charge is a last-minute attempt to stop the bill that has divided anti-abortion groups and anti-immigration groups. The Nebraska legislature will vote Wednesday to attempt to override the governor’s veto.

NEWS FLASH

Anti-Abortion Group Pushes Senators On Prenatal Care For Undocumented Immigrants | The anti-abortion group Nebraska Right to Life sent a letter to six State Senators yesterday urging them to support a bill restoring prenatal care to babies with undocumented mothers. In the open letter, the group’s executive director, Julie Schmit-Albin, wrote, “It is sad and alarming that we have come to this point where some of the major pro-life leaders in the Legislature are choosing to put the illegal immigration issue and who pays for what, over the life and health of babies in the womb.” According to the Lincoln Journal-Star, all six of the Senators targeted have received the organization’s endorsement in the past. Two have said they are voting against it because of their opposition to illegal immigration. Governor Dave Heineman (R) has said he will veto the bill.

-Zachary Bernstein

By Guest Blogger on Apr 10, 2012 at 10:31 am

LGBT

Omaha Councilman Struggled With ‘Perceived’ Gender Identity

By Zack Ford on Mar 15, 2012 at 9:04 am

Dr. Franklin Thompson

Nebraska blogger AKSARBENT continues to analyze this week’s decision to advance LGBT non-discrimination protections in Omaha. Councilman Franklin Thompson was one of the most vocal opponents of the measure, and during the final debate on Tuesday, he struggled quite a bit with protecting “perceived” gender identity:

THOMPSON: Perceived sexual identity is bothersome to me. It’s sort of like someone saying “You and I can perceive ourselves to be black this week, but next week we’ll be white.”[...]

What if the individual decides that one week, “I perceive myself to be male,” and then a month later, “I perceive myself to be female,” and then the smaller companies—

My point is that the perception can go both ways. Perception is so vague and ambiguous that it’s hard to quantify. You’re asking Omaha businessmen to take a shot in the dark.

Watch Thompson’s arguments:

First of all, it’s obvious that Thompson does not have the most basic understanding of gender identity. Transgender individuals do not haphazardly change their gender from month to month — gender identity is enduring and consistent, not so different from how individuals experience race. But more importantly, the entire point of including the language of “perceived” identities is to ensure people are protected from discrimination regardless of what their identities actually are. An individual might be mistreated because she is perceived to be a lesbian, even if she actually isn’t, but she deserves to be protected under this law either way. Fortunately, the provision passed despite Thompson’s opposition.

There may be one glimmer of wisdom to be derived from Thompson’s offending confusion. As our society becomes increasingly multiracial, perhaps “perceived race” should be protected too.

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