Category Archives: Portrait of America

Who Will We Choose to Be?

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America stands at a crossroads. Are Nebraskans willing to decide? Or will many ignore history and choose the path of least resistance, comfortable in the safety of their whiteness (for now)?

Ask yourself: Was Joe Biden elected president in 2020? Current president Donald Trump says no, that he won the election and Biden stole it. There is zero credible evidence for this assertion. But here we are, more than five years later, with insurrectionists on the loose, pardoned by the president. Several have been arrested for new crimes. One—Jared Wise—is a senior advisor at the Justice Department.

Does the First Amendment guarantee freedom of speech? Is due process of law guaranteed to “any person,” as it says in the Fourteenth Amendment, before they can be deprived of their liberty?

What kind of system does the president prefer? He told America in 2018 that he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un had “fallen in love.” He has said that he admires the “loyalty” the people have for Kim (loyalty which is state-mandated), and Trump has said he wishes Americans would display that same reverence for him. It’s quite similar to statements he’s made praising “president for life” Vladimir Putin’s post-democratic Russia.

And during his second term, MAGA has repeatedly floated this idea of a third term, as well as a dynastic transfer of power to one of Trump’s children.

On Sept. 12, when a Fox News reporter asked Trump about the current rash of political violence on the right and left, offering him a chance to call for calm and national unity, he had this to say:

“The radicals on the right are radical because they don’t want to see crime … The radicals on the left are the problem – and they are vicious and horrible and politically savvy.”

The statement appears to make the claim that right-wing political violence stems from righteous anger at lawlessness, while left-wing radicals are simply “vicious”. Seizing the moment, Attorney General Pam Bondi noted

that the Justice Department would “go after” Americans for “hate speech,” a statement she later walked back.

But just recently, Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer told Nebraska Public Media, “It’s not free speech to celebrate the death of someone,” and that those who do so need to be “held responsible.”

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Now the National Guard is spreading nationwide—Portland is next— coordinating with ICE and behaving as an occupying force rather than the emergency-response “citizen army” that is their charter.

Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen is all in, circumventing the legislature to offer the McCook prison facility to ICE for detainment of those they sweep up in raids of workplaces, streets, and residential neighborhoods.

But they are not sweeping up the white male citizens who dominate the American assassination game in their dragnet.

Meanwhile Pete Hegseth, our hair-sprayed celebrity Secretary of Defense, has called every single flag officer in the US armed forces, wherever they may be, to an auditorium in Quantico, Va., on Sept. 30, ostensibly to hear a speech from him.

Many officers reportedly fear a loyalty purge well beyond the anti-DEI cuts to the GOFO (General Officer/Flag Officer) ranks Hegseth has made thus far. Aside from that, it is an unprecedentedly expensive and dangerous gathering that will impact military readiness in multiple active theaters of war. Is that important?

As a matter of history, at least one retired general pointed out online that Hitler called a meeting of all of his general officers in 1935 to extract a loyalty pledge prior to implementing his domestic plans. Hegseth’s winking response? “Cool story, General.”

And at a recent memorial for a MAGA-friendly pundit who was just the latest political figure—this time on the right—to be assassinated by a disturbed man with a gun, White House senior advisor on immigration Stephen Miller harkens back to a famous speech of the 1940s. He dramatically describes the “storm” that this particular killing has generated, rhetorically transforming the trigger-pulling “him” into a non- specific, broadly threatening, anti-American “they”—then switching to an ominous “You”:

“They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us…You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing.”

You get the idea. The many thousands in the crowd, in their Trump gear, heard him loud and clear. One man’s car was painted with the slogan, “Tolerance Killed Charlie Kirk.”

Now the environment appears right for Pam Bondi to make good Trump’s threat to prosecute his political enemies, as former FBI director James Comey—a lifelong Republican—faces a Justice Department indictment.

Of course, the administration’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, was just reported to have taken $50,000 in bribes from the FBI. The Justice Department apparently will not prosecute, and his job appears safe.

But it seems Trump will not rest until he finds a prosecutor to charge a member of the Federal Reserve—one he wants out—with a crime of his invention.

Former President Obama is being “investigated.” Former UN ambassador John Bolton’s home was recently raided. Dozens of career government prosecutors have been fired, and some are being investigated, for working on the January 6 insurrection cases.

Constitutional Republic or fanatical patriot cult? Respectful political opposition and rule of law, or constant attempts to frighten and dominate domestic “enemies” with dehumanizing Christian Nationalist rhetoric and veiled threats against citizens, all emanating from openly partisan elected officials? Which will it be, Nebraska?

As someone who wasn’t born in America, I think I’ve made my choice.

Commentary originally submitted and accepted by the Nebraska Examiner. I declined requested rewrites demanded from a “national editor (not the Nebraska Examiner editor), so the article was not published. I provide the final submitted version here.

Happy 250th Birthday to the United States Army 

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On June 14, we wished our United States Army a happy 250th birthday. It was a significant day for me, having grown up around the world among soldiers, sailors, airmen and their families. 

My father, George Wees, was born in Omaha to second-generation Polish immigrants. His father, Francis Wees, built houses in South Omaha, including the house he, my grandmother, and their nine children called home, near 38th and G. Dad attended Creighton Prep and graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1958. 

I was born a few years later, in Heidelberg, in then-West Germany. Young Lieutenant Wees was on one of his early assignments working with the newly established West German military, via a NATO attachment, to establish secure government communications networks just miles away from Soviet-allied East Germany.  

In 1966, Dad received orders for Vietnam. He was to advise a South Vietnamese Army unit in the burgeoning conflict between the communist North and the democratic South. He parked my mother and us kids in a little duplex in East Omaha, and off he went to spend a year on the other side of the globe. 

Cadet George Wees in his West Point dorm room
Cadet George Wees, USMA 1958

I remember, he furnished us with a little tape recorder and microphone, and he and my mother exchanged tapes, in addition to near-daily letters, during his deployment. She still has the tapes. In some of his messages, you hear the gunfire in the distance. And at those times, you hear a bit of unsteadiness in the young lieutenant’s voice.

When Dad returned in 1967, he was stationed at the Pentagon, now a Captain. We lived in a little house across from a park in Vienna, Virginia, where I attended kindergarten and first grade. It was there that I really got to know him. He set up a dark room in the basement to pursue his photography hobby, bought a Mustang for the Pentagon commute, and patiently hosted siblings from Omaha who wanted to come visit Washington.

But by 1969, it was time for his second tour in Vietnam. Back we came to Omaha, to another little house on 43rd and Center, a rental owned by friends. There my mother, sister and I would wait out another year of war. That is, if Dad survived. 

By this time, things were less taut, less military, and problems extended from the front to the rear. In command of American troops near Nha Trang, Dad survived at least one attempt on his life—from his own troops. 

Because by this point, many of the young draftees were convinced the war was pointless. Eventually, after resisting the notion for years, Colonel Wees agreed with me that the war, through Democratic and Republican administrations, was ill-conceived and badly executed. 

In other words, pointless.

But we should remember that rank and file soldiers like my dad only served. None of it was their idea, nor did they make the big decisions. That was the province of civilian leadership in Washington—folks who would soon be ousted, many imprisoned, the president resigning in disgrace. 

Our current civilian leader, who has already been disgraced by multiple felony convictions and a sexual assault judgment against him, used the occasion of the Army’s birthday to throw a party and have a parade. 

The Army, as always, followed the commander-in-chief’s orders, and rolled the tanks down Constitution Avenue in a light rain as the president attempted a few salutes. Nearby, at Arlington National Cemetery, Dad rested.  

Though drafted, the president never served (bone spurs), and according to witnesses, he has labeled as “suckers and losers” the rank-and-file soldiers who make up the service. His campaign-style speech to West Point’s 2025 graduating class—complete with MAGA hat— was thin on talk of duty or honor.

But those cadets did what cadets do. They listened to the president troll and dismiss his predecessor, threaten his political “enemies”, invent “facts”, and brag about himself, without visibly reacting, except to politely applaud as they shared their achievement with the commander-in-chief. 

That’s what it looks like when doing one’s duty, honorably, for one’s country. It looks like discipline, because that’s what is required to lead. 

Happy 250th birthday to the United States Army. May you continue to serve and protect the Constitution, and to quietly obey the lawful orders of whatever civilian leadership the voters place above you, for centuries to come.

Written for the Nebraska Examiner

https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/07/08/celebrating-250-years-of-the-u-s-army/

A Shadow Looms Over Omaha’s Leaders 

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Unpublished editorial

This Tuesday, Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert and Police Chief Todd Schmaderer held a press conference intended to “quell apprehension amplified by national reports of imminent deportations under the new Trump administration,” according to the Nebraska Examiner.

Asked what would happen if federal officials insisted on help, Schmaderer said he doesn’t have to stray from his defined mission: 

“The federal government can’t come one day and give a directive to the Omaha police chief, to the mayor, to say, ‘This is what you’re going to do.’”

The two were responding, as the Associated Press reports, to a new memo written by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, which instructs the Justice Department’s civil division to work with a newly formed “Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group.” The group will  identify state and local laws and policies that “threaten to impede” the Trump administration’s immigration efforts and potentially challenge them in court, according to the memo.

This action, and this memo, are generally being reported nationally as a tool to go after heavily Democratic cities that “hinder” Justice Department anti-immigration efforts, such as via statue, policies or immigrant-friendly court actions. 

But the leading argument is not the most salient one for Omaha. Later in the 3-page memo, we find this: 

“Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands and requests.” (Emphasis added)

Chief Schmaderer is probably banking on that word “lawful” to hold the status quo and allow him to resist any federal “commands” he finds distasteful (or professionally dangerous). But let’s look closely, here in 2025, at the legal parameters of the authority of the executive branch—charged with enforcing the nation’s laws—as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Consider that one reason Trump is back in office is a series of Trump-friendly rulings by the conservative Court, culminating in Trump v. United States (2024), which grants presidents unqualified immunity from any laws they may break while engaged in acts “within their core constitutional purview.” 

I would argue that Mr. Trump regards his America First crackdown on illegal immigration as a very “core” act with regard to enforcing the law, especially since deporting undocumented immigrants was the main plank of his campaign platform. And, to be clear, those who cross the border without going through channels have broken the law.

But Mr. Trump, as we have seen, breaks the law and then claims political persecution is driving anyone hoping to hold him accountable (those 34 felonies and numerous former federal indictments). Rather than Trump, it is often the DA or prosecutor coming after him whose professional life ends in tatters. So what’s to stop him now, with his immunity ruling in hand, from breaking any law that gets in his way? 

Given the immunity ruling and Trump’s penchant for defining legality under his own terms, it is safe to say that any law designed to constrain this president from executing what he believes to be his “core” functions—to include  punishing people who impede those functions—is no longer a law. It is a “suggestion” at best. And to Trump, any suggestion that his power should be limited is seen as a challenge. 

So what becomes of Omaha? Lincoln? Admirably, you have pledged to tread the legal path and obstain from operating outside your purview, even if so ordered. 

But what of the divergent path the president may believe to be “more” legal—perhaps even “perfect”—given his history and the power of immunity recently bestowed upon him? 

In 2025, we must ask—which of those represents the “legal” choice? It looks like only time will tell.

Trump’s Return: Implications for U.S. Democracy

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January 9, 2025

From Exile to Victory

Today is a National Day of Mourning. As I write this, the body of Jimmy Carter lies in state at the Capitol, the hallowed center of America’s democracy that was violently attacked by Donald Trump’s supporters four years ago last Monday. 

He told them to go to that same Capitol and “fight like hell” as Congress attempted to certify the results of a free and fair election, so they did. It was a counterpart for today; it was a national day of shame. The world looked upon the United States as a democracy losing itself to violent hooliganism.

But in eleven days, the same Donald Trump who refused to recognize the vote of the people, the one who tried to engineer a reversal of Democratic President Joe Biden’s win by whatever means necessary, who has been convicted of 34 felonies, who assaults women, who “allegedly” stashed a trove of secret government documents in his bathroom (I guess we’ll never know), who calls America a “garbage can” fighting “forever wars” while praising Putin’s blood-soaked Russia—this man will be sworn in as president once again. 

He will be sworn in by a member of the Supreme Court, a conservative majority of which has  granted him constitutionally questionable immunity from prosecution for his many alleged crimes. As I write this, that same Court has just narrowly decided not to try to erase his 34 state felony convictions for crimes committed before he was in office. 

This is not to mention the literally thousands of lawsuits Trump has been hit with, the payouts to hoodwinked “students” of the phony Trump University, his civil trial for sexual assault of Ms. E. Jean Carroll (for which he was found liable), or the many other women who have come forward to accuse him of assault. 

Remember the Donald Trump who admitted barging into the dressing rooms of his Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants to “inspect” the half-dressed contestants? Because he could? The Trump whom we heard on tape claiming that he could not help himself, could not resist grabbing and kissing beautiful women? It’s the same Trump now. 

As Gallup notes, the Supreme Court protecting Trump from accountablity presides over a court system that it appears Americans no longer trust. In 2020, 59% of those polled said they have confidence in the courts. A few weeks ago, Gallup released a poll showing that in the last five years, the number has dropped to 35%. According to Gallup, this is the kind of rapid decline in confidence seen during recent upheavals in countries like Myanmar, Venezuela, and Syria.

Yet it is by design. A democraticaly elected president cannot become a “dictator on day one,” as Trump has publicly promised, without a little help from his friends. As Putin and his ilk have done in Russia, Hungary, Syria, Venezuela, and other former democracies, Trump must undermine the authority of the courts in the eyes of the public before he can bend them to his will. 

Ironically, in the case of the Supreme Court, the unaddressed ethical lapses and outrageous behaviors of conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, as exhaustively reported by Pro Publica, have aided this campaign against the courts’ general credibility. Chief Justice Roberts’ annoyed dismissals of any hint of wrongdoing, as if to suggest that wrongdoing by members of a powerful court with no one to answer to but itself is impossible, have also likely moved the needle. 

And of course, Trump relentlessly attacks every judge, prosecutor, or DA who dares to come after him, casting them as the Spanish Inquisition and himself as a modern Jesus of Nazareth. But as with those juries that have found him to be less than innocent, to me the publicly available evidence alone makes him look more like a criminal being prosecuted by the law than a politician being persecuted by his enemies. There’s just no evidence of the latter, unless you look all the way back to the 2019 Ukraine debacle, Trump’s mob-like pressure campaign to force the Ukranian government to smear the reputation of candidate Joe Biden (the subject of Trump’s first impeachment.)

Speaking of protecting the public from wrongdoers, that was also Aileen Cannon’s job in presiding over Trump’s trial for allegedly stealing top secret government documents. We all saw what happened with Trump’s appointee in charge—endless delays and needless hearings on every frivolous motion, followed by prompt pre-election dismissal of the case based on the already-defeated notion that the special prosecutor was “illegally appointed.” 

That was the end, as they say, of that. But it should have been only the beginning. Special Counsel Jack Smith was ready to appeal. 

Then Trump won the election. 

From Victory to Retribution

Yes, once again, Trump won. Now, like a character in a novel rescued from unjust banishment and restored to the throne, Trump’s ignominious past begins to fall away in favor of an imagined “return of the king” narrative favored by the administration and its friends in high (and low) places.

Indeed, the major media, much of which is now owned by Trump’s fellow billionaires, seem to be suffering a major case of amnesia regarding the historic coup attempt. Three days ago was the fourth anniversary of the January 6 attack. In perusing the media that morning, one of the two articles I saw on the topic was from never-Trump conservative David Frum, writing in The Atlantic on the topic of—you guessed it—how the incoming administration and its apologists are trying to “erase” the legacy of January 6. 

It must be erased, because this king has returned for “retribution” and “justice,” as promised when he announced his candidacy in early 2023. Before even  taking office, he has already threatened our neighbors both north and south, throwing in Panama and Denmark for good measure. He has threatened GOP elected officials like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney with “military tribunals”, whatever that is supposed to look like. 

You may recall that four-star General Mark Milley, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, spoke on the phone with his Chinese counterpart during the mayhem of January 6, 2021. As the world press was live-reporting on a possible coup by Trump’s supporters, who were marching through the halls of the Capitol chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” and defecating on elected officials’ desks, and while Trump himself did nothing but watch the sordid show unfold on television, Milley took responsibility for assuring the Chinese government that the United States nuclear arsenal was under control and that there was no threat of an unprovoked nuclear strike. 

The Chinese were completely blind regarding what may have been happening in terms of the security of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and chain of command. Further, U.S. intelligence indicated that weeks earlier, the Chinese had acquired intelligence of their own suggesting a possible first strike by the U.S. So Milley’s call may have been instrumental in averting an accidental nuclear exchange. 

But Trump, after a couple of years spent rehabilitating himself among his supporters, was retroactively livid. He said publicly in September 2023 that Milley’s actions were treasonous and, in past times, would have merited court-martial and execution. In other words, he was insinuating that his former Joint Chiefs Chariman, a decorated war hero and a symbol of the modern military, could be put to death for calming the global situation while Trump sulked in front of his TV, watching the insurrection he co-authored. 

What’s more, at the time, Milley’s call had been discussed and authorized by the then-Secretary of State and acting Secretary of Defense. While it may be argued Milley exceeded his statutory authority in making the call, it may also be argued—and more convincingly—that bridging the gaping hole in the chain of command left by the absent president was the more immediate concern.

Professor Tom Nichols of the U.S. Naval War College said as much, writing in The Atlantic at the time that “[t]he Constitution of the United States has no provision for the control of planet-destroying weapons while the President is losing his mind and trying to overthrow the government itself.”

Since that time, General Milley has become a standard-issue MAGA pariah, to the point that he has been forced to barricade his home and hire private security for his family. It’s a familiar story now. By taking a stand for the Constitution and the public good, Milley has become  the symbolic anti-MAGA warrior who must be diminished.

Let’s remember what Trump confidant (and fellow convict) Steve Bannon has been saying for years: “Our goal is the deconstruction of the administrative state.” 

Milley has since said publicly that Trump is “the most dangerous person ever” and “a fascist to the core.” With Trump about to gain unchecked power, I am very concerned for the general’s future, and by extension the future of all who value the checks and balances of the Constitution, the integrity of the courts, and the rule of law. 

But we who value such things are no longer the majority. Instead, the country will inherit the kind of future that a small plurality of Americans and a decisive majority of Nebraskans asked for with their votes last November. It’s a future they have gifted to Trump the Immune, but whatever fruits it bears will fall to all of us. 

They say the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Let us see how this future unfolds. 

There Are No Words

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I’ve read many of the words pouring out from well-intentioned souls in the wake of our latest school massacre, just as I do each time it happens. Like others, I suppose I’m compelled to look—in vain—at what might just be the solution, finally, to America’s unique problem of near-daily mass murder sprees.

Obviously, the words don’t help. Like thoughts, like prayers, words in the newspaper are just that—words. Not action. Not change. Not conviction. Just words.

And words go away, like yesterday’s news, wrapped around today’s catch, ultimately headed to the waste bin. Worse, words today are weaponized, with truth itself under investigation as “alternatives” to evidence-based reality abound. 

And when truth becomes a casualty of politics, as it often does, as it is right now: words become absolutely meaningless. 

Yesterday, I was reading the “news” about the January 6 panel’s far-reaching evidence showing that the president of the United States set in motion a dedicated, coordinated campaign to overturn the 2020 election results. In the middle of that online article was a garish ad for a gold coin engraved with Trump’s profile, as if it were some coin of the realm (which it is—his realm).

Which Trump do you like, the insurrectionist or the hero? Take your pick. Your preferred version places you into one of the two Americas from which we now must choose. Because it’s looking  like no denizen of either country wants to be a citizen of the other’s. 

Of course, both claim to be the “real” America. So like Solomon presented with two women claiming the same infant, we have an apparently insoluble problem. But unlike Solomon, we cannot threaten to cleave the nation in two in a gambit to reveal the liar, because that’s already done and the liar has taken his half. Try as they might to convince “America” that Donald Trump should be held responsible for the insurrection he fomented, the January 6 panel can only hope to bring the evidence to one of the Americas. The other one is tuned in to Fox News (which is, of course, skipping the hearings). 

People who associate unfettered access to firearms with their personal freedom—and defense of that access with heroism—will never support new legal limitations on same. People whose children have been murdered with another child’s rifle, and those who empathize with them, will never stop pushing for those legal limitations. 

People who feel they can no longer tolerate the outcomes of the democratic process will seek to undermine it and ultimately discredit it, just as those who see the danger the first group poses will seek to shore up our democratic institutions, to protect our fragile experiment in self-government. 

If you want the future to go either of these two ways, the same avenue is open to you as has always been open to you: your vote. Unless you are a public figure accountable to the public, that’s all you really have. I agree it’s not much power. 

However, en masse, those who vote for Congressional Republicans are now, whatever they tell themselves about Christian values or whatnot, voting with Trump and with the gun lobby. They are voting for a Big Lie and for more dead children. That’s undeniable, because the vast majority of GOP elected officials support both Trump’s Big Lie and the gun lobby’s forever agenda of “more guns and fewer restrictions on them.” If re-elected in 2022 they can be expected to stay on this course. 

Likewise, all who vote against Republicans are voting for the preservation of democracy, or at least for some hope in that direction, and for a beginning to the end of the gun lobby’s vice grip  on our political culture. They don’t need to be heroes—just public servants who get the “servant” part.

No words that I or anyone else says will change the dynamics of this contest. Only whether—and how—you exercise your power in November matters. It’s in your hands.

(Composed but not submitted for publication)