from BoldNebraska.org

from the Lincoln Journal Star

from the Lincoln Journal Star

from the Lincoln Journal Star

Don’t forget to check out the Bigfoot & Nessie Valentines while you’re here.

Here are four Bigfoot & Nessie Valentines for you to print out and share with your friends!

To download high-resolution front and back sheets suitable for printing, click the links below:

Special thanks to Erin Burke for helping with the ideas. Enjoy!

Thanks to my laziness, I didn’t get the Monday, January 31st edition of the Lincoln Journal Star until Friday of last week (the mailman scrawled “Not shoveled!” on the front of the paper. And while that is true — I was a bit slow getting the sidewalk from the street to my house clear — my mailman doesn’t even use the sidewalk when it’s shoveled; he cuts through a flower garden, steps on plants and breaks my little lights! But anyway…) and I didn’t read through that paper until today.

Lo and behold, Don Walton mentioned Mark Christensen’s birther bill in his Monday column:

Sitting in the pile of this year’s pending legislative bills is a measure introduced by Mark Christensen designed to require presidential candidates — uh, that would be Barack Obama — to jump through a series of “birther” hoops to get his or her name on the ballot in Nebraska. Must be born in the USA and subject exclusively to the jurisdiction of the United States; both parents U.S. citizens; multiple documents and records required.

So I was wrong when I stated in the “Birther update” post that nobody else in Nebraska media was touching it. Don did! And I should’ve known that Don would.

The old story of Attorney General Jon Bruning’s path from Daily Nebraskan liberal to hardcore conservative has been around for years. I remember back during my second stint at the DN in grad school, a few politically minded students discovered that Bruning’s liberal columns had been removed from the bound volumes in the DN archives. A few years later, when Bruning announced he would challenge Chuck Hagel, a scan of one (or maybe more?) of Bruning’s columns appeared on the Leavenworth Street blog. Recently, they’ve surfaced once again now that Bruning is planning on challenging Ben Nelson. Bold Nebraska wrote about Bruning’s liberal youth a few weeks ago, and yesterday it showed up on Politico.

In case it needs to be said, I am no fan of Jon Bruning’s politics. I’ve heard he’s a nice guy in person, and I once invited him to an informal Daily Nebraskan alumni reunion before P.O. Pears closed down, but I doubt I could disagree with him more on policy views. But I just don’t think this should be an issue. People’s opinions change over time! When I was a teenager, I loved Rush Limbaugh! I listened to his radio show and read his books! My persuasive speech in freshman year speech class was on the myth of global warming! And look at me now — I’m practically a commie pinko!

I don’t know why I wandered into the abyss of Politico comments, as that’s usually a hellhole of Drudge-directed morons, but commenter “Matlock” made what I think is a very good point:

Sometimes politicians who legitimately change their minds have more depth than those who were precinct walking while still in utero because they have actually thought through the issues.

I realize the rules of the Republican tribe are different than those that govern the rest of reality, but personally I think it’s kind of meaningful when somebody leaves the other team for yours. It’s like how my mom, the Lutheran convert, is the most gung-ho Catholic in our family. If not for her, I dare say there would’ve been a lot more sleeping in on Sunday mornings.

There are plenty of things to pick on Jon Bruning for — things he’s doing now and things he wants to do in the future. I find those things much more relevant and persuasive than things he wrote 20 years ago.

UPDATE: Deena Winter is on the case now too.

from the Lincoln Journal Star

Well, it took a reprinted Nebraska News Service article in the McCook Daily Gazette for Nebraska media to touch it, but now people are finally talking about Senator Mark Christensen’s Birther Bill.

The story is worth reading, but here are a few interesting points:

As always, the comments on the story are fantastic. And check out The Huffington Post’s recap too.

So as commenter Todd pointed out the other day, I kind of stopped doing the reject countdowns. June was the last one I did in 2010.

There were several reasons for this — I started using an iPad for my sketches in early July, which changed how I saved my cartoons and made it a little less convenient. I also started cartooning for BoldNebraska this summer, which meant ideas had a little longer shelf-life and at least had more potential to not be relegated to the rejects bin.

But I’m aware of the fact that the rejects were one of the most popular things on the site, so I’ve always intended to bring them back. The beginning of February seemed like a great time, as I could promptly share the Top 10 of January with you. But to be honest, there weren’t a lot of good rejects from January, so I went a little deeper and combined the past two months. And so I present to you the Top 10 Rejects of December 2010 and January 2011!

10.

9. I’m completely coincidentally starting off with back-to-back firefighter cartoons.

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