Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
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The so-called “sequester” is the latest showdown to grip the attention of Washington and the nation. The House of Representatives voted twice to replace these arbitrary cuts before the March 1 deadline with commonsense reductions and reforms. However, these cuts are now in effect because the President and the Senate have yet to propose and pass a viable alternative. The sequester was passed as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which raised the debt limit in exchange for $900 billion in spending reductions. The bill also created a bip...
Water is Nebraska’s most precious natural resource and during the last few years we have experienced both extreme flooding and prolonged drought. I would like to share with you the work of the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources and their dedication to the sustainable use and proper management of our water and related land resources. The Department’s staff of over 100 is directed by Brian Dunnigan and has major responsibilities for regulating the use of the waters of our streams (also referred to as surface water administration), dir...
Remember the 1950s horror movie “The Bad Seed”? Any remake should cast Monsanto in the title role, because whenever something scary is being done to our food, you can usually find Monsanto lurking in the shadows. During the past two decades, this biotech behemoth has used its political connections to obtain a monopolistic grip on the creation, sale and proliferation of Frankenseeds — the seeds of corn, cotton, soybeans and other crops that have had genetically modified organisms spliced into their natural DNA structure by corporate lab techs...
When my six-year-old daughter Catherine is acting up, all I have to say is “Knock it off, or Daddy’s gonna make pasta!” She actually likes pasta. (Other than peanut butter and jelly or bologna and cheese, it’s the only food she will eat.) It’s my making it that scares her. It started a few months ago, when we ordered a new pasta maker. We’ve had them in the past, mostly ordered off of Saturday infomercials, but they have always burned out after a couple of months. This time, my wife ordered a brand of pasta maker from Italy at the recommendat...
Inside the Beltway, everybody’s talking about sequestration — and not only about whether it will happen (various supposed “high-level” sources say they are not optimistic that it will be avoided) and what it will mean, but also — it being the Beltway — which side of the aisle will pay the price. The president is running a campaign to convince people that the results will be dire, that they should be avoided in favor of a sensible mix of spending cuts and revenue increases, and that the Republicans’ insistence that all of the savings come from c...
When I accepted the assignment of writing a column I had no idea it would become as important to me as it has, because when I began this column I told myself I would not make this a frivolous blurb about nothingness. Though I have to admit I have had a few that I feel are just that, frivolous blurbs of nothingness. I can honestly say that was due to avoiding columns like the next few I will have, because I had to figure out how to say what I needed to in order to help someone else. I want to help by letting you (my reader) know you’re not a...
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is abolishing the company’s work-at-home policy and ordering everyone to show up at the office. Her decision has sparked intense and often nasty debate, with Mayer usually landing on the losing end. Many women, in particular, sound betrayed after daring to expect more from such a high-profile female boss. How could she? I understand the special brand of heartbreak brought on by women who end up acting like the male jerks they replaced. Dashed hopes sure pack a wallop. However, I don’t feel this way about Mayer. This is...
Bill Clinton, when campaigning for President in the autumn of 1992, visited workers at an electric utility plant outside Waco, Texas. He may or may not have know that he drove past a religious compound called Mount Carmel, originally built by the Branch Davidians but controlled at that time by another Seventh-Day Adventist splinter group led by Vernon Wayne Howell, aka David Koresh. So immersed in apocalyptic literature were Koresh’s followers that they were armed and ready for Clinton, but h...
“People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses” —Juvenal Isn’t it grand that we have such a cool couple in the White House? Hollywood would never have deigned to invite any other First Lady to present the award for best picture at its annual self-worshipping soporific. Mrs. Obama knew just how to flatter the nearly inexhaustible vanity of people who sell tickets to shows. “I am so honored to ... help celebrate t...
We all have those little things in life that we dread but have to put up with anyways. I asked my dad what I should write about this week and he answered simply, “dentist visits.” I inquired as to whether he had had one that day and he replied that he hadn’t but that he just hated them. He then continued, “we all have those things in life that we despise, but those little things are also what balance us.” I agreed with him. I think knowing that life isn’t always perfect oralways happy is good for us in a way. We live for the moments that are go... Full story
The founders of our American Republic deliberately designed a federal government with three separate but equal branches; the legislative branch to pass laws, the executive branch to enforce laws, and the judicial branch to interpret and review laws. Through a system of checks and balances, the founders sought to prevent any one branch of government from having too much power. During the past several decades, however, Congresses and administrations from both parties have expanded the power and scope of the executive branch at the expense of the...
These past 30 years have been marked by many blessings for Stephanie and me. Being granted the tremendous privilege to represent a state I love and address issues important to Nebraskans has been one of the greatest honors of my life. As the seasons change, there is a time to plant and a time to reap what has been sown. And while I have decided not to seek reelection in 2014, we are far from the harvest. This Congress is just getting started and we have plenty to accomplish in the next two years. In the Senate, I will continue to push for a...
This past Sunday, I paged through the Real Estate section of the paper to see if we could find a home closer to my children’s orthodontist. Most people look for an easy commute to work or want to be near good schools. The way things have been going lately, most of our time (and money) seems to be spent in trying to keep our kids from growing up to look like hillbillies or the British royal family. I have five kids, all of whom have big beautiful teeth and small cramped jaws and will need some form of orthodontia (Latin for “torture of the mou...
“In the wealthiest nation on earth,” President Obama declared in his State of the Union speech, “no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty.” Right! Way to go! Not only does his call to raise America’s minimum wage put some real pop in populism, but it could finally start putting some ethics back in our country’s much-celebrated (but rarely honored) “work ethic.” Kudos to Obama for putting good economics and good morals together — and for putting this long overdue increase on the front burner. But then came the number: $9 an hou...
Back in 1985, after being trounced in the general election, Washington strategist Al From and a group of Democratic elected officials founded the Democratic Leadership Council. Its stated purpose was to move the Democratic Party to the middle — particularly to deal with the influence of the ideologues and caucuses (and there were many of them) who dominated the presidential nominating process. Co-founders included then Gov. Bill Clinton, Sen. Sam Nunn and Rep. Dick Gephardt, among others. It was not popular with everyone, including yours t...
First impressions have been on my mind a lot lately, and how much stock most people put into them, more often than not leaving people with a misplaced judgment, because first impressions can be just as misleading as they can be telling. Most people use a first impression to decide what they think about another, often building their future thoughts on the ‘taste’ that person left in their mouth. Whether it be in the way a person talks, their attitude, the way they dress or how they act most people will form and use that first impression as a b...
Dads matter. President Barack Obama said it recently in Chicago, a city on track for 600 murders this year, the equivalent of two Sandy Hooks per month. Too bad he still does not understand that his left-wing ideology is the problem. After the Sandy Hook tragedy, Obama, much of his party and much of the media have been calling for further gun control and advocating “common sense” measures such as limiting the number of rounds in a magazine, “universal” background checks and restrictions on “assault weapons.” But there is an 800-pound p...
Some of the strongest women I know are Catholics who disagree with their church but refuse to give up on it. There are the nuns, of course, including Sister Simone Campbell. I met her and her merry bus of truth tellers last year after they rolled into Cleveland during their four-day, nine-state tour to educate Americans about the real Paul Ryan plan. The Republican congressman may have held his own in the vice presidential debate with Joe Biden, but he was no match for Campbell. Her fact-laden fight for those living in poverty left Ryan’s s...
We all come from somewhere, whether it is a small town, a major city or another country. Where you come from can determine your values and what’s important to you, but it doesn’t define you. Some people may think that if you come from a small town out in the country that you are a “hick” and not as educated as those that come from a metropolitan area. Just as those from the country may see city kids as “stuck-ups.” I remember this one time my high school soccer team was playing Montesano, a town about 45 minutes from Rochester. It had been a ni... Full story
This week, President Obama delivered the annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. The speech is a great tradition and it is an important opportunity for the President to share his vision with Congress and the American people. While there were positive elements of the speech, I was disappointed President Obama did not say anything to indicate he has a serious plan to address our nation’s most urgent problem – out-of-control federal spending and debt. In fact, the President seemed to double down on the same tax, spe...
What do farmers and ranchers, builders and businesspeople have in common? One thing I keep hearing from constituents in these respective industries is that an onslaught of rules and regulations from federal agencies has hampered their abilities to develop new innovations and create needed jobs. Since President Obama took office, more than 308,000 pages of new rules have been added to the Federal Register. That’s enough paper to cover more than four and a half acres of farmland, and weighs more than three Ford F-150 pickups trucks. The E...
I was once told that in life one must wear many hats to truly appreciate the full affect life has upon any one given person – in other words wearing many hats gives a person a true understanding of empathy. In my life I have found this to be overwhelmingly true and with honesty if it wasn’t for all the things I have seen in my short life or been a part of I do not think I would have half the empathy I contain today. And as it is with all aspects of life the journey does not stop in one place, it is us who gets stuck in that place whether or not... Full story
You know how something isn’t really news, but suddenly, everywhere you look, there’s a story about it? I felt like this last week, when I saw headline after headline asking me whether I know how smart is my dog. This is all sparked by a new book called “The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs are Smarter Than You Think,” a groundbreaking work that provides evidence dogs are really, really good at reading their owners’ gestures and learning words. (When you write a book about it, it’s called a “groundbreaking work.” When you just look at your dog, wonde...
The lesson from the State of the Union address is this: Barack Obama has no second term agenda. Oh, sure, he campaigned furiously for the job, starting in about January of 2011. But his campaign almost never outlined his plans for a second term, focusing instead on interest group payoffs and demonization of his rival. Late in October of 2012, as if recognizing that they’d forgotten to attend to it, the Obama campaign released a 20-page glossy handout called a “blueprint for America’s future.” It featured splashy photos of the president on near...
Does it bother anyone else that the president of the United States seems to believe that our collective future entails assembling battery parts in a government-subsidized factory for $9 an hour? Is that really what Americans envision for their kids — an assembly line? Because when you look past Barack Obama’s mesmerizingly hollow rhetoric, what he’s proposing is a return of jobs that progress and prosperity have left behind. In his State of the Union speech, the president laid out a vision that we’ve heard countless times. In his world,...
