NebraskaPatriot

Questions Remain for Both Parties

Dems leaders in denial while Republicans find many new faces with strong views . . .

For Democrats, the November election was a kick in the pants and one wonders if the leadership in Washington really got the message. I do firmly believe that the message has been loud and clear to the majority of the elected Democrats who survived and represent districts from Pennsylvania west to Utah and all parts in between. They get it but of course, those folks don’t control the party.

Leadership positions in the House for Democrats are controlled by the Liberal factions from the Northeast and West Coast and for Democrats, their worst nightmare may be occurring if Nancy Pelosi truly goes through and runs for minority leader. If that happens, Pelosi will be the face of the Democrats in Congress once again after the worst shellacking in 72 years. This would be staggeringly stupid but Liberals outnumber the remainder of their Congressional brethren and so it appears it will happen.

For Republicans, now this will be interesting to watch. They have at least 80 new freshmen and these folks come from a wide swath of the country. They come to Congress ready to reduce Government and cut spending. The big question is will their leadership really go for cutting the budget or will they just tinker on the fringes? How vocal and aggressive will these new members be?

Over in the Senate, it’s good news, bad news for Republicans there. The bad news is that Republicans didn’t win control of the Senate. The good news is that Republicans didn’t win control of the Senate!

In reality, the best Republicans could have hoped from the 2010 election was a 51-49 majority. That would have been a huge problem for Republicans as they tried to run the Senate because they have a couple squishy members such as Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The Women of Maine along with Mr. Graham have demonstrated through the years that they are incredibly unreliable for Republicans.

In addition, the reality for Senator Scott Brown is that he is up for re-election in Massachusetts in 2012  and you will not find a stronger leftist state in the country. He has been fiscally conservative but has trended toward his state’s tastes on non-fiscal issues. But Senator Brown for me is fine because has been very solid fiscally and that is THE issue of importance for the coming years. Social issues have been put on the backburner by the American people.

The bottom line is that Republicans would have struggled to hold a majority together on a whole host of issues and Collins, Snowe and Graham would have gained the ultimate power to control the fate of legislation in the Senate. Consequently, Republicans might have electorally held the majority but legislatively Democrats would control the chamber and made life miserable for Republicans who would also bear all the responsibility in the court of public opinion.

So there you go. As someone once said, “A politician thinks of the next election – a statesman of the next generation.” It’s time for the statesmen to rise and be counted . . .

 

 

Please Vote

You Just Have to Laugh

As the election draws to a close (thank god!!!!!), more and more complete and under silliness is coming out. I guess some politicians just figure that we are all a bunch of dunder heads. I present Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz:

          

Soooo, this probably sums up why Democrats are struggling this year heading into next Tuesday's election . . .

Election 2010 is Getting Interesting

There are some really good ads out there running for Conservative candidates. Our neighbors in Colorado have some new billboards that have sprung up(click below)

 

For those in and around Denver, you are getting an eye full. Thanks to National Review on-line and WSYS for the following map on the billboards saturation in the market:

Here's an ad from the Nevada Senate race involving Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid. This one is targeted by the Angle campaign at the all important Independent voter:

 

And then down in Florida, there is an incumbent Democrat House member that, well, Alan Grayson is a flipping nut case:

 

And finally, we turn to the Senate race in Washington state where Republican Dino Rossi is really hitting his stride. This one is just so good:

 

The Week That Was For Senator Nelson

1. ObamaCare 1099: Nelson voted for fellow Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns’ amendment that would have scrapped a section from the ObamaCare law. The Wall Street Journal reported on this completely insane provision this week:

“small businesses are staring in horror toward 2013, when the 1099 mandate will hit more than 30 million of them. Currently businesses only have to tell the IRS the value of services they purchase from vendors and the like. Under the new rules, they'll have to report the value of goods and merchandise they purchase as well, adding vast accounting and paperwork costs. Think about a midsized trucking company. The back office would have to collect hundreds of thousands of receipts from every gas station where its drivers filled up and figure out where it spent more than $600 that year. Then it would also need to match those payments to the stations' corporate parents. Most Democrats now claim they were blindsided and didn't understand the implications of the 1099 provision—which is typical of the slapdash, destructive way the bill was written and passed. 

The amendment failed 46-52 as the majority Democrats decided it’s more important to continue to pile on small businesses and retard job growth further.

2. Immigration: The Omaha World-Herald reports that Senator Nelson “offered a simple warning to Democrat leaders, “Just don’t do it.” “It” being the “DREAM Act”, which is an amendment that Majority Leader Harry Reid is apparently going to add to the Defense bill that will be coming in front of the Senate soon.

Reid’s “DREAM Act” would allow children who are here illegally to attain citizenship if they go to college or join the military.

This Defense bill sets out a range of key defense policies, including the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as well as the authorization for military spending over the next fiscal year.

3. Nelson was on FOXNEWS’ On The Record with Greta Van Susteren Wednesday night and here are the highlights:

• Bush Tax Cuts – “no time to be raising taxes on anybody”
• Stimulus – “you have to go county by county in Nebraska, we have done an analysis of that and I think it [Stimulus] has worked”
• Spending – “You have to control the spending. I am hopeful that our appropriations process this year will hold the line on any growth in spending.”
• Election Reaction in Delaware – “all need to be on our toes always focused on what’s going on back home. I paid close attention a year ago with what was going on in Nebraska and so we tried to focus with people back home with more information and better explanation. Sometimes it’s not as important how you vote but why you vote – make sure we are responding to these concerns people have.”

Well there you go. Digest that and think about what he said and did this week.

A Peak At the 2012 Nebraska U.S. Senate Race

if I were in his shoes I would be worried, I would be very worried . . .

I've been very open in my displeasure with our Democrat U.S. Senator Ben Nelson. His ineptitude and total arrogance on ObamaCare and the Stimulus bill are the basis for why the majority of Nebraskans are in the mood to replace Mr. Nelson in 2012.

Just one quick reminder on Stimulus: Mr. Nelson was THE person who put the group together in the Senate to get it passed. He was vey proud of that moment. Let's harken back to June 29th, when on Mr. Nelson's OWN Senate web page, Senator Nelson posted the following defense of the Stimulus. Oh, please note even he recognizes the political poison the term Stimulus has come to be and tries to change it to "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act":

“In early 2009, we passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act with emergency spending to address an emergency, indeed a crisis. Hundreds of thousands of Americans were losing their jobs each month. We were in the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

“Some argue it wasn’t necessary, but the fact is today the economy is recovering and the Recovery Act clearly contributed to the welcome economic improvement."

You can go back in my blog and look at all my prior posts about Senator Nelson concerning ObamaCare. To access just go to the left column of this blog and under "categories" click on "Senator Ben Nelson".

If you want to get a look at what a television ad could look like by the Republican opponent of Mr. Nelson's, we need to look no further than out in Washington state where Patty Murray, the Democrat U.S. Senator is running for her political life against Republican Dino Rossi. Murray was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992.

Rossi's ad is priceless and should send a shiver down the backs of the folks in Nelson's Washington office:

 

The Summer of 2010

I think it's safe to say that for many Americans, the Hope and Change of this President is giving way to just Hope that there will be Change on November 2nd.

I will say it again that if we get Republicans in charge of Congress than at least businesses will be able to make some plans on future spending since they know that Congress and the White House will tie each other up and nothing will get done legislatively.

However, there is one large factor that we will need to keep in mind. If Republicans take over Congress, look for President Obama to turn to his bureaucrats to turn up the levers and twist this country hard left.

It will be up to Republicans to pull the budget plug on anything Obama tries and that includes not funding major parts of ObamaCare. It will be interesting in the months ahead.

Here's the Republican National Committee's latest political ad. It's sobering.

 

 

More Evidence that "Hope and Change" Needs Changed

I really am a positive person but you can't escape reality . . .

The Latest:

500,000 new jobless claims filed

14.6 million Americans unemployed

Existing home sales down a record 27-percent

National debt is accumulating at a rate of $4.1 BILLION . . . Per . . . DAY

What's the next shoe to drop for this country from Hope-and-Change?

 

Hagel Needs Some Love

it's got to be difficult for someone who craves attention to be so out of the spotlight . . .

Our former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel has endorsed Democrat Joe Sestak in the race for the U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania. For those in the Government's Department of Media this is a big thing but for those who will cast ballots in November in Pennsylvania, one has to wonder.

The AP's report:

"Former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican who has broken ranks in the past with the GOP, gave Democrat Joe Sestak his second major endorsement from moderates in a week in his bid for a hotly contested Senate seat in Pennsylvania."

I just love AP's description of Hagel as "a moderate Republican". Chuck Hagel is no moderate Republican rather Chuck Hagel craves attention and in Washington the way for a Republican to get that love and attention from the Government's Department of Media and the Elites is criticize your party and your President and become basically a political ambulance chaser.

Nebraskans could care less about Chuck Hagel. He ran and won the U.S. Senate seat as a native son who understood Nebraska values. It was a sham. I was one who was taken in by it. But we soon saw that he didn't care about Nebraskans concerns rather he was concerned about advancing his ego and a larger ego you will not find than Chuck Hagel's.

One can see how far Mr. Hagel has fallen with the Elite that he is asked to endorse a Democrat whose campaign is failing and who is reaching for anything he can to turn things around.

So Sestak turns to Hagel who didn't run for re-election in 2008 because he became so widely UN-popular due to his liberal positions and snobbish and loathing view of the very Nebraskans who embraced him during his initial campaign.

I've spent a lot of time over the years in Pennsylvania and I have to wonder if the Hagel's name even registers with the majority of voters in the state. This is not a criticism of those in Pennsylvania rather a statement on the over inflated self worth that Hagel bestows on himself.

Please note, you don't see any candidates asking for his endorsement in Nebraska . . .

It's Time . . .

the campaign to recapture the soul of this country is before us . . .

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has released what I think is a very effective ad.