Read the article in the McCook Daily Gazette here.

Mike Huckabee: “Hi, this is Mike Huckabee and I’m calling on behalf of my good friend, Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, who is running for the United States Senate.”

“Jon is a proven conservative who has led the Constitutional challenge to Obamacare.”

“He’s rooted out Medicaid fraud and has been endorsed by Nebraska Right to Life.”

“Jon’s also fought for our Second Amendment rights and has received an A rating from the NRA.”

“Join me in supporting Jon Bruning by voting for him on May 15.”

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Locked in a close race, U.S. Senate candidate Jon Bruning told the Bulletin Saturday that he won’t take a back seat to anyone.

Bruning stopped on the campaign trail to meet with the Bulletin to respond to harsh criticism of his opponents.

“I’m not a back bencher,” he said. “My opponents can talk a good game but I’m willing to fight for what I believe.”

Bruning, Don Stenberg and Deb Fischer, all experienced Republican politicians, are locking horns in the race for the U.S. Senate, firing attack ads at each another.

The winner will be decided Tuesday in the primary election.

Tough challenger

Pointing to 20 lawsuits against the Obama administration that he has led or signed onto, Bruning notes that when Don Stenberg was attorney general, “he didn’t sue the Clinton administration once.”

Stenberg has accused Bruning of being soft on the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Bruning says that’s a bogus claim.

He’s opposed to any form of gun control.

“I have an ‘A’ rating from the National Rifle Association,” he said. “I carry a shotgun in my truck and not that long ago I was out chasing pheasants. I’m a huge supporter of the second amendment and a lifetime contributor to the NRA.”

He said as president of the association of state attorneys general, he endorsed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder when he was appointed in 2008.

“I was asked if I would be supportive,” he said. “Nobody knew him at the time. Some Republicans were supporting him, such as Sen. Jeff Sessions, not a liberal by any means. And, the Democrats had control of the Senate and were probably going to approve him anyway. I figured if he pushed for some bad programs, I could fight him when the time came.”

Moneymaker

Bruning has accumulated a small fortune during his time in public office, investing in several companies. Critics worry that he crosses the line between public and private interests.

“That’s been dramatically overstated,” he said. “I’ve invested in some stuff with college friends, along the lines of 10 guys getting together to buy a building, where everyone puts up $20,000 or so. Some of those investments have done well. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Too many regs

Bruning wants to focus on what he would do if he’s elected — cut government regulation, notably the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, which are currently cracking down on the use of coal to generate electricity.

EPA forced a $35 million overhaul at the Gerald Gentleman Station near Sutherland, one of the cleanest burning coal plants in the country.

That’s ridiculous, Bruning said.

“We have clean air out here,” he said. “You could sleep in the shadow of Gerald Gentleman and be just fine.”

Bruning points to his accomplishments as Nebraska’s Attorney General.

He said the Medicaid fraud division has found $50 million in illegal claims and returned it to the state treasury in six years. He’s also staffed a consumer fraud division with unpaid college interns who take reports and pass them on to attorneys if necessary.

That division has handled 5,000 reports a year, and so far this year refunded $1 million in overcharges.

Health care

If the U.S. Supreme Court overturns “Obamacare,” Bruning said business competition can make health care more affordable, but first, businesses could stop providing it.

“With employer sponsored health care, people don’t really have a choice in what they get,” he said. “Individuals should be able to buy insurance with groups of other individuals.”

“And it should be a la carte,” he said. “A couple in their 40s does not need insurance to cover childbirth.”

If elected

Bruning promises to work across the aisle in Congress, given one agreement.

“We all have to come to full agreement to reduced spending.” he said. “We are $16 trillon in debt.”

Bruning was elected president of the association of state attorneys general, a group of 30 Democrats and 20 Republicans.

“Some of my best friends are Democrats,” he said. “We might disagree all day but still have a beer after 5 p.m.”

Western wear

On a lighter note, Bruning said he would put his cowboy boots and hat in his car. He was recently accosted for going without western wear on a Friday in North Platte.

“I have two cowboy hats and three pairs of boots in my closet,” he said. “I might have to throw them in the trunk.”

Bruning wrapped up a two-week, 15-city tour of Nebraska Saturday, with stops in Sidney, Scottsbluff and Hastings, besides North Platte.

He was in McCook Friday.

Read the article in the North Platte Bulletin here.

Bruning with voters in Sidney

Bruning with voters in Gering

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LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Republican U.S. Senate candidate and Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning is preparing to wrap up his final campaign tour around the state before the primary election Tuesday.

Bruning will finish the 15-city tour of Nebraska he began two weeks ago this coming weekend.

Bruning’s stops include Fremont, York, North Platte, Kearney, Grand Island, Norfolk and Columbus. He’s also visiting Lexington, McCook, Ogallala, Sidney, Gering, Hastings, Lincoln and Omaha.

Bruning says he’s pleased to meet with Nebraskans and “hear firsthand about the issues most important to them.”

Read the article online here.

“This is yet another example of Bob Kerrey supporting the liberal agenda of Barack Obama,” said Bruning. “Unlike Bob, I agree with Nebraskans, who in 2000 voted overwhelmingly to defend traditional marriage through the Defense of Marriage Act. I continue to believe that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, period.”

# # #

Jon Bruning: “Today, our liberty is under assault.”

“President Obama’s reckless spending has run our debt up to nearly $16 trillion, and Obamacare is an unconstitutional and unprecedented government power grab.”

“The Constitution is how we fight back against a government that is too big and spends too much.”

“And in the Senate, the Constitution will always be my guide.”

“I’m Jon Bruning, and I approve this message to let Washington know conservative change is coming.”

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Attorney General Jon Bruning, candidate for the Republican nomination for Nebraska’s open U.S. Senate seat, said reducing federal regulations and cutting spending are the keys to eliminating the federal deficit.

Bruning sounded those themes during a Monday morning business roundtable at H&H Distributing in Grand Island.

He first talked to reporters who gathered for the meeting with local business leaders, state Sen. Mike Gloor, Mayor Jay Vavricek and Grand Island Area Chamber of Commerce President Cindy Johnson.

Bruning accused the Obama administration of creating a “regulatory regime” standing in the way of American job creation. He said the federal government simply needs to get out of the way and let business do what it does best, which is create jobs.

The candidate kept up that theme when he sat down with a handful of local business leaders, as he talked about proposed new Environmental Protection Agency regulations adding $45 million in costs to the operation of the Platte Generating Station, Grand Island’s coal-fired power plant.

Those regulations are part of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which the EPA said is designed to “slash hundreds of thousands of tons of smokestack emissions that travel long distances through the air, leading to soot and smog, threatening the health of hundreds of millions of Americans living downwind.”

But Vavricek talked about how long-range emissions mean that American plants perhaps are being penalized for particulates coming from Chinese power plants. Bruning criticized excessive regulation of coal, saying that the United States is the “Middle East of coal” because it has enough coal reserves to last 500 years.

Gloor noted that cleaner-burning natural gas is becoming more cost competitive with coal. Bruning said he wants the market to make that determination. He warned against the EPA having heavy-handed regulations on fracking, which is a method of releasing more of the nation’s natural gas reserves.

Johnson talked about employers being concerned about the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and how unionization might make it more difficult for businesses to have competitive labor costs.

Bruning criticized the NLRB for temporarily blocking Boeing from building a non-union plant in South Carolina, a right-to-work state. He said the federal government should not have the power to tell companies where they should build.

Read the entire article from theindependent.com here.