Free Republic

After Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) announced Saturday that he had decided to support the amended health bill that allows federal funding of abortion, he set to work defending the decision in terms more familiar on the lips of his liberal colleagues: emphasizing the need for a compromise, and highlighting the greater good of the health of millions of Americans. Yet Nelson left behind a still-reeling pro-life and conservative constituency questioning what could have prompted the sudden change in the senator - who days before seemed so placidly settled in his convictions against the bill, particularly regarding abortion. The tension leading...

About half way down on the right side of the page. Sen. Ben Nelson stood firm on his principles. True False Unsure View Results

I received this question from a friend on Facebook: So, Jill, what happened with Nelson? You and other pro-life leaders were advising people to be "calm" and to thank him, and all indications now are that he prostituted his vote like so many others. How do you know who to trust? My friend was speaking about a blog post I wrote Dec. 11 encouraging pro-lifers to maintain support of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb. In that post I relayed an e-mail received from Democrats for Life's president, Kristen Day, assuring everyone Nelson was unwavering in his refusal to vote for any...

“Equality before the law” may be the state motto for Nebraska, but some Nebraskans are asking for sister states to sue the Cornhusker state. “Is there anyone out there that will sue the State of Nebraska and/or Senators Ben Nelson and Harry Reid?” asks Patricia Rief-Heskett of Omaha. .. “The deal the senator made for Nebraska is against the law and against the Constitution,” says Rief-Heskett... And the Omahans has crossed all of her ‘ts’ and dotted all of her ‘i’s. “Our Constitution states in Article 1, Section 9: `No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or...

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I said yesterday it wouldn’t be long before Obama’s Jokers posters started popping up across the country.First, Claire McCaskill.Now, Nebraskans have Jokerized Ben Nelson. (Or rather, he Jokerized himself, didn’t he?)Reader Tim e-mails the photos and this message:“Saw this in small town Nebraska today less than 50 miles from Ben Nelson’s home town. This is pretty surprising to me because this is strictly an agricultural area. Nelson has consistently catered to the agricultural interests in Nebraska and so is pretty popular among the farmers and ranchers in the area. Federal subsidies are a huge percentage of area farm income. But...

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, after securing a sweetheart deal for his state as part of the health insurance reform bill, said Tuesday that three other senators have told him they want to bargain for the same kind of special treatment. "Three senators came up to me just now on the (Senate) floor, and said, 'Now we understand what you did. We'll be seeking this funding too'," Nelson said. But the Democratic senator, who has faced a heap of criticism for appearing to trade his vote on health care for millions in federal Medicaid money, said he's considering asking that the...

Ben Nelson's taking a lot of heat for accepting the Reid bribe of a free pass on Medicaid to sign on to the Reid health care fiasco. Even the state's biggest newspaper is poking fun at him and one of my correspondents indicates he'd not be surprised if the Senator chooses not to be the ex-Senator from Nebraska by voting against the bill when it comes to a final vote after conference. In the meantime, seven states' attorneys, lead by South Carolina are considering bringing suit if the Nebraska provision is in the final bill: "The top prosecutors in seven...

Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, may have taught his Congressional colleagues a valuable lesson when he clinched a special deal for his state. But not all of them are happy about it. Mr. Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, bargained for extra payments for his home state during negotiations late last week, in which he provided Senate Democrats with the magical 60th vote they needed to advance their health care bill. Prompted by an angry Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, the attorney general of that state and six others are looking at the Nelson deal, which they have dubbed...

Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman was just on Fox News with Greta Van Susteren, where he denounced Harry Reid's purchase of Nelson's 60th vote for cloture on the Senate bill. "Nebraska doesn't want a special deal, we only want a fair deal. We're embarrassed by what's going on... Nebraskans are angry and upset by what they've heard," Heineman said. "I've also asked Senator Nelson... he has a chance tomorrow to vote no on cloture. That would be the best thing for Nebraska, the best thing for America. Send this bill back to committee, go home for Christmas and think about it...

Formally, it is known as H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But this week, it has acquired an unhelpful nickname: "Cash for Cloture." As Senate Democrats finally complete their health-care legislation, those combing through the bill have uncovered many backroom deals that were made to buy, er, secure the 60 votes needed to "invoke cloture" -- the legislative term for cutting off debate and holding a final vote. It will take years to see how well the measure reduces costs and expands insurance coverage. But already, the bill has been a bonanza for wordsmiths. First there was...

Sen. Ben Nelson's, D-Neb., abandonment of his alleged "pro-life" commitment brought Harry Reid within reach of a Christmas Eve vote to approve a Senate version of Obamacare. When that happens, the political battles over the future of American medicine and especially the care of seniors will shift to the conference committee and then to the House. Though many conservatives are demoralized, they should instead be gearing up to peel off enough votes from among the 220 who voted for Obamacare when it passed the lower chamber. If the 215 who voted "no" on the first round stay firm, only three...

In the end what pushed Obamacare over the top in the Senate were the secret bribes democratic leadership made to "convince" people from his own party to vote for cloture. The most significant of the "bennies" was the one which helped Ben Nelson switch from pro-life to pro-choice. Nelson managed to win a share of the section of the manager's amendment on Equitable Support for Certain States, which will provide Nebraska, along with Massachusetts and Vermont, support in paying its share of additional costs to Medicaid in the health legislation. Attorney Generals in Seven States are investigating whether they can...

The top prosecutors in seven states are probing the constitutionality of a political deal that cut a funding break for Nebraska in order to pass a federal health care reform bill, South Carolina's attorney general said Tuesday. Attorney General Henry McMaster said he and his counterparts in Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, Texas and Washington state — all Republicans — are jointly taking a look at the deal they've dubbed the "Nebraska compromise." "The Nebraska compromise, which permanently exempts Nebraska from paying Medicaid costs that Texas and all other 49 states must pay, may violate the United States Constitution —...

It was serendipitous to have almost simultaneous climaxes in Copenhagen and Congress. The former's accomplishment was indiscernible, the latter's was unsightly. It would have been unprecedented had the president not described the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change summit as "unprecedented," that being the most overworked word in his hardworking vocabulary of self-celebration. Actually, the mountain beneath the summit – a mountain of manufactured hysteria, predictable cupidity, antic demagoguery and dubious science – labored mightily and gave birth to a mouselet, a 12-paragraph document committing the signatories to ... make a list. A list of the goals they have no...

Turns out Harry Reid just kind of forced the money into his hands, you see. “Three senators came up to me just now on the (Senate) floor, and said, ‘Now we understand what you did. We’ll be seeking this funding too‘,” Nelson said. But the Democratic senator, who has faced a heap of criticism for appearing to trade his vote on health care for millions in federal Medicaid money, said he’s considering asking that the Nebraska deal be stripped from the bill. Though he defended the exemption as a “fair deal,” he said he never asked for the full federal...

Politics: Sen. Mary Landrieu was the new "Louisiana Purchase." Sen. Ben Nelson got the federal government to pick up his state's future Medicaid tab. Maybe we should just put Senate votes up on eBay. Nelson, the 60th vote in the middle-of-the-night Senate party line vote on health care reform, will go down in American political history as the inventor of the permanent earmark. His seemingly principled stand against including federal funding for

Too bad Barack Obama hasn’t followed through on his promises of legislative transparency. Then we all could have watched Harry Reid live on C-SPAN handing an oversized Publishers Clearing House–style $100 million check to Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson. The highest-profile Democratic hold-out on Obamacare, Nelson said last week, “My vote is not for sale.” He obviously meant that in the sense that he’d be righteously indignant at any suggestion that his vote could possibly be bought for anything less than the low nine digits. Nelson got the feds to pick up forevermore 100 percent of the additional Medicaid spending that...

Democrats voted early this morning in the Senate on the initial series of cloture votes with the goal of passing the Senate's health care bill by Christmas. Following the 1:30 am vote, Sen. Ben Nelson (D - NE) emerged from the floor and spoke to reporters about the bill as well as the controversy surrounding the deal Senator Nelson acquired of Nebraska for full federal funding of Medicaid in perpetuity. The Washington Times asked the Senator if he thought the other states should get the same Medicaid deal that Nebraska received. "Of course. As a matter of fact, I said...

Final score: Cowboys 24-Saints 17; Democrats $2.6 trillion-America's middle class…screwed.