Nebraska Blogging

Say hey kids.

We hate to go more than a week without saying anything, so here is a brief post to say hello, and start out a new comment board, if nothing else.

Oh sure, the big news this week has been about the travails of Nebraska State Treasurer Shane Osborn and his family. If that is not a sad story, we don't know what is. Many commenters here on on L. St. have been anxious to make declarations one way or the other about the case, who is right, who is wrong etc.

We are not going to stop you from discussing it, but we would simply ask that you use your best judgment here and consider that there are three young children in the balance. Please try to keep it to the political issues. Your comments should show them and their family respect at all times.

**UPDATE**
Treasurer's wife drops request for protection order

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Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey is going out of office with a bang. Freezing wages, closing pools, reducing library hours (people still use libraries?). Of course many of these problems are of his own making, so he should propose fixes as well.

However, we can't get over the statements, or lack there of, of his successor, Jim Suttle.

Suttle declined to comment Thursday. His communications manager said Suttle would follow Fahey's recommendations.

"We support everything Mayor Fahey has done," spokesman Ron Gerard said. "We are fully apprised of the situation."

OK, that's fine and all, but nothing? Nothing from the Mayor-to-be at all? He's got NO suggestions? No tweaks? No proposals?

Well, we suppose at least he is being consistent from his campaign, when he didn't propose any ideas then either...

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Senator Ben Nelson is getting more heat from Democrats. A national group, "Change Congress" is hassling him for the position he has taken regarding the goal of President Obama to nationalize the health insurance biz.

The group claims, essentially, that Nelson is beholden to the insurance industry because they've given him lots of campaign cash.

Of course, they seem to miss the point on Nelson -- pointed out by his spokesman:

Nelson, he noted, has been an insurance executive, an insurance industry regulator and a senator representing Nebraska - "arguably the insurance capital of the world."

So, maybe, just maybe, Nelson is getting the insurance money because he supports their positions, and not the other way around.

Expect Nelson to get some more face time as the Supreme Court vote heats up.

Not that he doesn't enjoy the attention. (smirk)

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We leave off this week with a note about one of our fellow bloggers of the Left.

Kyle Michaelis's blog, New Nebraska Network has been up for around four years, about a year more than Leavenworth Street.

During that time he has written about political issues from his Democrat/Liberal/Progressive stance, and frequently criticizes us. And we enjoy criticizing him. We think he is wrong 90% or more of the time and believe that if his positions took hold in the state or country, they would have a disastrous effect.

That being said, Kyle, and some of his blogging compatriots at NNN, are very good (if not sometimes verbose) writers, and they often make their case (however wrong it may be) eloquently.

Kyle has recently suggested that his blog may go the way of the Bugeater moniker and fade into Mike Tyson's Bolivian. We think this would make the Nebraska blogging community a less interesting place.

The back and forth between Republicans and Democrats and Conservatives and Liberals and Libertarians and Progressives makes for a healthy debate. When you argue, you fine tune what you think, you make the other person think, and hopefully, we shape a better community.

Now we also enjoy the pure politics of it, and one of the reasons we get into it is because it's fun. If it wasn't fun, many wouldn't bother being involved. Having someone to argue with is a much better time.

So we suggest that after you're done reading Leavenworth Street, you hop on over to the NNN, give it a read, and possibly comment (it would make it much easier if Kyle dropped his sign-up policy -- we understand why it's there, but you have a trade-off with it). Tell Kyle why what he writes is goofy, and that he write more of it.

We hope he sticks around.