<Nelson voice> Ha ha! </Nelson voice>
weasel Foley got his comeuppance --Foley's changes nixed
By NANCY HICKS / Lincoln Journal Star
Thursday, Mar 23, 2006 - 08:43:51 pm CST
Sen. Mike Foley lost his legislative fight to makes sure that Planned Parenthood gets less state money.
He lost at least in part because some senators were upset that he wasn’t more honest about his reasons for trying to change how state dollars are distributed.
Senators voted to remove the Foley language changing the traditional bid process during second-round debate on the main budget bill (LB1060) on Thursday. Senators also removed the additional $250,000 that would have gone to pay for health care services for low-income women next year.
Instead the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee will study the program that uses about $500,000 in state tax dollars each year to reimburse clinics for treating low-income women, giving pap smears and testing and treating sexually transmitted diseases.
But the Health and Human Services System could change the way the bid process works even before that study.
Three of the seven senators said they switched their votes, at least partly because Foley had misled senators about his real motives. Senators also said they didn’t want to spend more hours debating the issue, a guarantee if the Foley language wasn’t removed.
Sen. Carol Hudkins of Malcolm said she has told Foley that he should have been more forthright. “I was not really happy with the way he did it,” she said.
Sens. Roger Wehrbein of Plattsmouth and Ray Aguilar of Grand Island also said they in part changed their votes because of the disingenuous way Foley initially approached the measure.
Last week senators approved language that would have required the Health and Human Services System to give a preference to local health departments and federally qualified health clinics when giving out the $500,0000, rather than the current preference to health clinics that received federal Title X funding.
Foley originally said his goal was to make sure the money went to more doctors and clinics across the state, so women would have easier access to testing programs.
He insisted this was his goal even after some senators questioned his motives during debate.
However an e-mail written by Foley that became public later in the week indicated his primary motive was to keep state funding from Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions.
The Lincoln senator has since acknowledged his goal was to limit state funding to Planned Parenthood and other federally funded clinics across the state that provide abortion information and referral.
“Planned Parenthood really is different than other clinics” that provide health care to low-income Nebraskans. “They do abortions and they do it in my district. I am offended by that and that offense is compounded by the fact that they receive state funds and federal funds,” he said Thursday. Foley could still achieve his goal. Since there is no language in the current state law or the budget bill giving direction on the bid process, HHSS could change the traditional way the money is distributed.
The agency will be making a decision on the bid process soon, said Kathie Osterman, spokeswoman for HHSS Thursday afternoon. The new bid process is supposed to take place this spring, to pay for services beginning July 1.
Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.Votes switched
Seven senators who had voted in favor of Sen. Mike Foley’s proposal to change the bid process for state health care funding switched their votes Thursday. They were Sens. Ray Aguilar of Grand Island, Doug Cunningham of Wausa, Pat Engel of South Sioux City, Carol Hudkins of Malcolm, Mick Mines of Blair, Pam Redfield of Omaha and Roger Wehrbein of Plattsmouth.
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LITTER KWITTER toilet training the kitty... it's tempting... with 4 of the furry little poop machines & 3 boxes, cleaning them every day gets old... especially times like right now when they're all indoors all day because of the huge snowstorm we had earlier this week...
posted by decemberx 11:50 AM[edit]
National Review Online right-wing blather...
posted by decemberx 5:46 PM[edit]
Nebraska Right to Life Committee The good thing about their political endorsements is I know which right-wing fundies NOT to vote for....
posted by decemberx 4:46 PM[edit]
Coolness! I've been pissed that you have to get digital cable if you wanted to watch UPN here... more free TV is always good, because I don't know if I'll be able to afford cable when I move out....
UPN Nebraska will not become new CW affiliate
BY JEFF KORBELIK / Lincoln Journal Star
Friday, March 17, 2006
The deal announced Friday between The CW and Pappas Telecasting Companies means Lincoln?s UPN Nebraska no longer is in the running to carry the new network.
Pappas, which runs KPTM-TV (Fox) and KXVO-TV (WB) in Omaha, signed a long-term agreement with The CW, a new network that will launch this fall with programming from The WB and UPN.
The contract includes carrying The CW on KXVO for the Omaha market and KOWH-TV, a new Pappas, over-the-air station that is currently under construction for the Lincoln, Kearney and Hastings market.
Lincoln cable subscribers will receive The CW on Omaha?s KXVO, which airs on Time Warner Cable channel 15. The station also is available over the air.
Satellite subscribers currently have access to WB programming as part of their local tiers, but need to check with their providers about the new CW.
UPN Nebraska, owned by Gray Communications, had been in the running to carry CW programming in Lincoln, Kearney and Hastings.
Now that its not, UPN Nebraska will continue under a new name with new primetime programming, said Lisa Guill, general manager of UPN Nebraska and CBS affiliate KOLN/KGIN-TV.
UPN Nebraska currently airs UPN shows between 7 and 9 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Guill said the station is looking at becoming a My TV affiliate. My TV is a new network Fox is developing, which primarily will feature hour-long dramas.
Guill also said the channel, which airs on digital channel 110 on Time Warner's system in Lincoln, will air more local programming.
"Although (CW) would have been a good opportunity for us, we see an opportunity with the route we’re going to go,” Guill said.
Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.
posted by decemberx 4:13 PM[edit]
Think Progress
posted by decemberx 12:18 PM[edit]
From USAToday --
The liberal baby bust By Phillip Longman
Tue Mar 14, 6:56 AM ET
What's the difference between Seattle and Salt Lake City? There are many differences, of course, but here's one you might not know. In Seattle, there are nearly 45% more dogs than children. In Salt Lake City, there are nearly 19% more kids than dogs.
This curious fact might at first seem trivial, but it reflects a much broader and little-noticed demographic trend that has deep implications for the future of global culture and politics. It's not that people in a progressive city such as Seattle are so much fonder of dogs than are people in a conservative city such as Salt Lake City. It's that progressives are so much less likely to have children.
It's a pattern found throughout the world, and it augers a far more conservative future - one in which patriarchy and other traditional values make a comeback, if only by default. Childlessness and small families are increasingly the norm today among progressive secularists. As a consequence, an increasing share of all children born into the world are descended from a share of the population whose conservative values have led them to raise large families.
Today, fertility correlates strongly with a wide range of political, cultural and religious attitudes. In the USA, for example, 47% of people who attend church weekly say their ideal family size is three or more children. By contrast, 27% of those who seldom attend church want that many kids.
In Utah, where more than two-thirds of residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 92 children are born each year for every 1,000 women, the highest fertility rate in the nation. By contrast Vermont - the first to embrace gay unions - has the nation's lowest rate, producing 51 children per 1,000 women.
Similarly, in Europe today, the people least likely to have children are those most likely to hold progressive views of the world. For instance, do you distrust the army and other institutions and are you prone to demonstrate against them? Then, according to polling data assembled by demographers Ron Lesthaeghe and Johan Surkyn, you are less likely to be married and have kids or ever to get married and have kids. Do you find soft drugs, homosexuality and euthanasia acceptable? Do you seldom, if ever, attend church? Europeans who answer affirmatively to such questions are far more likely to live alone or be in childless, cohabiting unions than are those who answer negatively.
This correlation between secularism, individualism and low fertility portends a vast change in modern societies. In the USA, for example, nearly 20% of women born in the late 1950s are reaching the end of their reproductive lives without having children. The greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disproportionately from the feminist and countercultural movements of the 1960s and '70s, will leave no genetic legacy. Nor will their emotional or psychological influence on the next generation compare with that of people who did raise children.
Single-child factor
Meanwhile, single-child families are prone to extinction. A single child replaces one of his or her parents, but not both. Consequently, a segment of society in which single-child families are the norm will decline in population by at least 50% per generation and quite quickly disappear. In the USA, the 17.4% of baby boomer women who had one child account for a mere 9.2% of kids produced by their generation. But among children of the baby boom, nearly a quarter descend from the mere 10% of baby boomer women who had four or more kids.
This dynamic helps explain the gradual drift of American culture toward religious fundamentalism and social conservatism. Among states that voted for President Bush in 2004, the average fertility rate is more than 11% higher than the rate of states for Sen. John Kerry.
It might also help to explain the popular resistance among rank-and-file Europeans to such crown jewels of secular liberalism as the European Union. It turns out that Europeans who are most likely to identify themselves as "world citizens" are also less likely to have children.
Rewriting history?
Why couldn't tomorrow's Americans and Europeans, even if they are disproportionately raised in patriarchal, religiously minded households, turn out to be another generation of '68? The key difference is that during the post-World War II era, nearly all segments of society married and had children. Some had more than others, but there was much more conformity in family size between the religious and the secular. Meanwhile, thanks mostly to improvements in social conditions, there is no longer much difference in survival rates for children born into large families and those who have few if any siblings.
Tomorrow's children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society. To be sure, some members of the rising generation may reject their parents' values, as often happens. But when they look for fellow secularists with whom to make common cause, they will find that most of their would-be fellow travelers were quite literally never born.
Many will celebrate these developments. Others will view them as the death of the Enlightenment. Either way, they will find themselves living through another great cycle of history.
Phillip Longman is a fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It. This essay is adapted from his cover story in the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine.
Copyright © 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Looks like I'm not the only woman who rejects the idea that one's worth is measured by one's spawning ability... regardless of the fact that there are more than enough morons breeding (case in point, the trailer trash visiting D&E last Friday who let their children run around and around the room screaming, renewing my deep desire for someone to invent aerosol Ritalin, much like mosquito repellant, except it's carpet monkey repellant)... I wouldn't want a child of mine to grow up in the world the Republif*cks and the Christian Taliban are creating....
posted by decemberx 5:23 PM[edit]
Entertainment News Article | Reuters.com | The Smiths turned down $5 million reunion offer
posted by decemberx 5:08 PM[edit]
If I hear the phrase "Nebraska values" out of the mouth of one more right-wing a-hole running for office in this state, I think I'll puke... apparently, having a gigantic stick up your a$$ is a Nebraska value.... example #1-- Pete Ricketts -- I have a really hard time believing some weasel who's spent millions of dollars on lame tv commercials blathering on about what a down-home good guy & fiscal "conservative" he is... what, exactly, is "conservative" about wasting all that money??? He started running his commercials months before any other candidate. Oh, I guess what's "conservative" about him is his attempt to buy his way into office...
Example #2-- Dave Nabity this guy is running for governor, I caught the end of a televised debate last night, and this guy came off as a real a-hole in his closing statement... just another arrogant rich white guy pretending to give a f*ck about the "common" people (does he think he's George Bush III????)
Example #3-- our current governor, Dave Heineman, a wishy-washy copy of Mike Johanns (who failed his way up the ladder to be the Monkey-king's Ag Secretary, granted as a token bone to the sheep around here who think King George actually gives a sh*t about the people of this state beyond their mindless allegiance and campaign contributions) and a chinless wonder who fell into the job... he claims education and medicaid are two of his priorities if he actually gets elected governor, but, oddly enough, they don't seem to be his priority right now while he's actually in office, all he harps on right now is tax cuts, which leads me to wonder how he will finance education and medicaid should he be elected...
posted by decemberx 10:39 AM[edit]
NPR : A City Steps Up: Savannah Confronts Poverty Bush and every single Republican elected official should have to undergo one of these "poverty simulations" because not a single one of them has an f'ing clue what life is like for ordinary people...
posted by decemberx 8:52 AM[edit]
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