We ended this week by taking up one of the most important bills that we will discuss this session– LB 825– a bipartisan compromise that would have been the biggest structural tax relief bill in Nebraska history. We came up one vote short of breaking a filibuster with 32 votes- but the proposal may come up in other bills before the end of session. This legislation would be pivotal in providing structural Social Security, Income, and Property Tax relief.
It really didn’t bother me when I reached the magic age of 70! Or 80, or even 90! There is just something very sobering though about having my firstborn child attain the age of 70. Considering all the “adventures” in his life that could have ended in disaster, it is amazing he has actually reached 70 years.
Some non-quarterback news came to the forefront of the AFC West conversation on Wednesday with Kansas City deciding to move Tyreek Hill to Miami for a package of picks. As the NFL offseason spins toward the month of April, the quarterback news has dominated most of the headlines with multiple teams ironing out who their starter would be for 2022. Deshaun Watson and Russell Wilson seem to be the biggest bits of news as both deals involved multiple first round picks. Watson headed to Cleveland. Wilson headed to Denver.
Kudos to Nebraska City Tourism and Commerce for three ribbon cuttings in as many days a week ago. It felt like the good old days before COVID! Day 1 was Friends of Faith, and the ribbon cutting there celebrated the fact that Friends of Faith has been able to purchase the building it's rented for many years...while also providing almost a half-million dollars of help to a variety of community groups in the past decade-plus.
For decades, the abortion industry has pushed the mantra that abortion is a human right. They’ve tried their best to normalize a culture of death, where the most vulnerable among us have fallen victim to the lie that one person’s so-called right to privacy trumps the right of another to live.
As war rages on the doorsteps of our NATO allies, the United States is weighing the best path forward to provide additional support to Ukraine and hold Vladimir Putin accountable. The destruction and bloodshed in Ukraine are tragic, and I was moved by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s joint address to Congress earlier this week. I was pleased when the House took action on a bill for which I’ve been advocating to revoke Russia’s trade privileges, a vote which President Biden and Democrats in Congress needlessly delayed. The world needs strong, decisive leadership from the United States, and President Zelenskyy has made it clear time is of the essence.
When feeling stressed, people may want to reach for a cup of tea. Research conducted by psychologists at the City University London found that a cup of tea reduces stress, not just by drinking it, but also because of the calming effect of putting the tea kettle on. Furthermore, decaffeinated green tea also can calm a person and encourage sleep. In a 2017 study published in the journal Nutrients, participants were able to fall asleep much more easily when drinking decaffeinated green tea. Also, they reported feeling much less stressed out over the course of the one-week experiment. Even black tea has been found to relieve stress by lowering cortisol levels when a person is faced with stressful situations. According to the herbal remedy site Herbwisdom.com, chamomile tea is an age-old medicinal herb that has been used as a remedy for numerous conditions, including asthma, nervousness, sleep, and stomach ailments and as a treatment for colds. It, too, many help reduce stress. Tea has many benefits for the body, and helping to tame stress may be one of them.
In an era of partisanship and polarization, compromise can be hard to come by. Bills that can garner enough support to clear the U.S. Senate’s 60-vote threshold for legislation are the exception, not the norm. It is even more rare to find a bill that all 100 members of the Senate can get behind, but we recently did just that when the Senate voted unanimously to pass my Data Mapping to Save Moms’ Lives Act.
I think, just maybe, the weatherman in charge of our part of the world has gone on vacation or else he has changed vocations. Okay, March came in like the most gentle lamb in the flock.
Life expectancy is a measure commonly considered when it comes to the overall health of a population. In this day and age, when most of us think about which medical interventions are most important to increase life expectancy, we probably think about things like treatment of cancer, interventions to treat heart attacks, or surgeries for life threatening illnesses. While those things are all important, their overall impact on a population’s life expectancy pales in comparison to the prevention of infectious disease.