Tag Archives: Omaha

Who Will We Choose to Be?

Posted on by
Reply

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.”

***

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.

Dear Senator Fischer: This Must End Now

Posted on by
Reply

Recently, Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer published another of her occasional updates for constituents. 

Ms. Fischer, on message as usual under the banner of “fiscal sanity,” related various earmarking victories for Nebraska communities and the common-sense approach the Republican-controlled Senate brings to America’s fiscal challenges.

In defending the Trump administration’s wholesale overhaul of the federal government’s mission—including canceling global aid programs and silencing the Voice of America overseas, pardoning dozens of violent criminals convicted of assaulting police, putting an unqualified person who traffics in conspiracy theories in charge of the nation’s health, offering insults and threats to our allies in Europe and the Americas rather than cooperation, accusing Ukraine of “starting a war” while laughing with Putin on his red carpet, sending troops into “Democrat”  cities against the will of local leaders (an action just ruled illegal), imposing tariffs on nations we don’t even trade with, and so on—Ms. Fischer argues that what she and her GOP colleagues are about is “reducing the reckless spending that has helped push our national debt past $37 trillion.” 

It’s true, you know, about the debt. It’s big. It was true in 2012, when Ms. Fischer was elected to the Senate. The debt was big in 2017, before Trump’s first term, and even bigger after. And, with the recent extension of the 2017 tax cuts, along with a quickly executed debt ceiling rise of some $4 trillion, it is projected to be even bigger in 2028. 

Because Republicans only complain about the nation’s debt when Democrats are in charge. As soon as a Republican president appears, these fears are magically transformed into “investing for growth” (i.e., tax cuts). That particular debt is supposed to pay for itself, right? Yet here we are. 

Of course, a revenue source apparently escaping the senator’s notice is at work in the form of the president’s sweeping, on-again/off-again tariffs, which were just declared illegal by a federal judge because Congress is assigned that power by the Constitution. (Apparently this judge, we will be told, is one of those who are ideologically aligned against the “president’s mandate,” something that doesn’t exist. And this sentiment will be echoed by those in the Senate who, according to law, actually hold the power Trump is exercising.) 

The tariffs are indeed pulling in millions of dollars every day. And it’s not a tax on you or me! Not technically. But since a tariff is charged to the importer of the goods (on the American side), not the foreign shipper, guess who will ultimately be paying it? Hint: not foreigners.

Now the government needs a budget, and that will require Democrats to vote for it. But Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, referring to Trump slashing funds already appropriated by Congress via legally questionable “pocket rescissions”, said that it’s “hard to justify voting for bills that aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a recent letter to colleagues, said that “Senate Republicans must decide: Stand up for the legislative branch or enable Trump’s slide toward authoritarianism.”

I agree. While a focus on numbers and debt may sound “serious” (and traditionally Republican) in print, Ms. Fischer’s message ignores other immediate emergencies facing this nation. 

I will add, Senator Fischer: remember how you felt on January 6, 2021? Many of the rest of us still feel that way. Your brief, three-sentence statement on that day was quite clear: “These rioters have no constitutional right to harm law enforcement and storm our Capitol. We are a nation of laws, not some banana republic. This must end now.”

That, too, remains true. We are indeed a nation of laws. Yet, as Ms. Fischer surely knows, one of those violent, lawless men who attacked the police on that day while yelling, “Kill ‘em!”—Jared L. Wise—is now employed by Donald Trump’s Justice Department as a “senior advisor.” 

So I offer your message back to you, Ms. Fischer, regarding this president who acts, with the blessings of his party, as a law unto himself: 

This must end now.

Submitted for publication to the Nebraska Examiner, not accepted

A Shadow Looms Over Omaha’s Leaders 

Posted on by
Reply

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.