Deeply Disappointed in Creighton University

People who know me, know I am a proud alum of Creighton University. Part of my pride in Creighton is that the students aren’t generally left-wing ideologues. That’s because many of the undergrads are focused on their future careers in the health sciences or business. Yes, the Jesuits are mostly liberal but they respect free speech and critical thinking.

This week, I made my monthly appearance before the Omaha Public Power District (“OPPD”) Board. I regularly challenge the Board’s policy of net zero carbon by 2050 and its spending of billions on more expensive and unreliable solar and wind. I have repeatedly told the Board about the Center for the American Experiment’s studies of Minnesota and Wisconsin and that their net zero policies will lead to the tripling of rates and blackouts in January. In fact, in discussing the possible deaths of OPPD customer-owners during a blackout I used an appeal to emotion citing Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. “It’s a hell of a thing, killin’ a man. Take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.” The Board was unmoved.

My mentor and friend at Creighton University was the late Fr. John P. Schlegel, S.J. I quoted him to the OPPD Board as saying, “A Jesuit education teaches you how to think; not what to think.”

After I finished, four Creighton undergrads spoke. They demanded that the OPPD Board move up its net zero carbon goal from 2050 to 2040. This has happened in other states. They cited the regular predictions of doom and death if the US doesn’t achieve net zero carbon by 2050. They also spoke of social justice.

Following the students was their professor, W. Ryan Wishart. His livelihood is dependent upon continuing to push the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) scam. He is deeply biased. I had earlier told the OPPD Board that CAGW is the greatest scam in the history of the world. CAGW is a scam because it is a prediction about events in the distant future based upon flawed models and corrupt data. The Left and the Street want the US to spend trillions on solar and wind by 2050, but we won’t know if all that spending worked until 2100; after we are all dead.

Professor Wishart is a faculty member in Creighton’s Environmental Science and Sustainability Studies Program; a worthless field of study. He earned his doctorate from the University of Oregon where he celebrated 125 years of Marxist sociology at that fine school. He’s published the usual progressive ideological trash e.g. “Defensive Environmentalism and Radical Social Change” and “Class Capacities and Climate Politics: Coal and Conflict in the U.S. ….” He – and the OPPD Board – refuse to accept the fact there is another side to the CAGW fad that is going to bankrupt this country if it continues.   

After the meeting ended, I went up to the students and asked them to engage in a dialogue. “Hey, we are all Creighton people. Let’s talk.”  I naively thought that college students still believed in free speech and the exchange of ideas in pursuit of the truth. I wrongly assumed that Creighton students were learning how to think and not just parroting what their professors told them to think. Boy, was I wrong. They all flat-out said that they “refused to engage with me.” What?!

The students believe that “social justice” will be served if net zero carbon is achieved. Apparently, they don’t know that lower income people will be hardest hit by higher utility rates. I had just informed the OPPD Board about a report from Robert Bryce showing that California has the third highest electric rates in the country because it has too much solar and wind in its grid.

Their professor then called me a “crack pot” and somehow affiliated me with the long defunct John Birch Society. He knew calling me a Bircher was an insult, but he apparently didn’t know that it was only concerned about communism in the United States back in the 60s. I was furious to be slimed by a teacher at my alma mater. This is especially so since my family has a 100-year association with Creighton; he’s only worked at Creighton for 10 years.

I then tried to debate this arrogant know-it-all. As part of my OPPD presentation, I used the slide showing Al Gore’s prediction of no snow on Kilimanjaro in 2005 and the picture of the mountain fully snow-covered today. He refused to debate. He didn’t want to recognize any inconvenient facts that conflicted with his core religious belief in CAGW.

If I’m a “crack pot” for not believing in CAGW, then so is the Nobel Prize winner in physics (Dr. John Clauser) and the father of the hydrogen bomb (the late Dr. Edward Teller).

Free speech really seems to be dead on campuses around the nation. I’m bitterly and deeply disappointed in the instruction that Creighton students are receiving today. They are being taught cultural Marxism. I’ll always cherish my Jesuit education because it taught me how to think. I doubt I’d be a conservative today if I wasn’t educated by the Jesuits. If fact, I was a liberal in college and law school. If students today don’t know how to think, we are in big trouble as a nation. 

Dr. Jeffery Gold is the worst possible candidate for the University of Nebraska President

March 20, 2024

By David D. Begley

In early February, I delivered to Trev Alberts a book. In it is the following quote, “So be careful of the way you end things, and devote more to a successful exit than to a highly applauded entrance.” I guess he didn’t get to that part of the book.

Even though I’m a Creighton alum, I have a deep love for the state of Nebraska. The University of Nebraska system is very important to our state and it needs to be successful for Nebraska to improve and grow.

Leadership at the top is vital to success. Creighton has been blessed with great presidents: Fathers Reinert, Morrison, Schlegel and Hendrickson. These men had long tenures and the full support of their Board.

The problems in the athletic department are symptomatic of much deeper failures in the University of Nebraska system. As important as athletics are to Nebraskans, the lives of our children are much more important.

To this day, I remain astounded that the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medicine engaged in child mutilation and medical experiments on children under the guise of “gender-affirming” care.

This grievous error in judgment was probably approved of at the top. At the top of UNMC is Dr. James Linder. I told the Regents to fire him back in December 2023.

Luka Hein has sued her Nebraska health care providers for medical malpractice. If successful, she will collect millions. To prevail, her lawyers will need to satisfy a jury that the medical standard of care for Omaha was not followed. But the larger ethical question is: How was it ever a good idea to voluntarily give minors powerful sex change drugs and remove healthy female breasts? England has been at it for some time and its NHS has totally stopped gender affirming care for minors because of the bad results.

Last session, Sen. Kathleen Kauth introduced a bill to correct the bad judgment of UNMC’s leaders. Senators Machala Cavanaugh and Megan Hunt were violently opposed and so they staged a session-long filibuster and “burned the session to the ground;” their words not mine.

All of this drama and time was the result of one horrible decision at UNMC that never should have been made. “First, do no harm” means exactly what it says.  

In 2024, we now know that the government’s response to Covid was completely wrong. It was the biggest unforced policy error in US history and we will be paying the price for decades. But no leader has been held accountable for being so, so wrong.

Sweden, alone in the world, took a different approach; no business or school closures, no masks and protect the elderly. The excess death numbers are now in and the Swedes were totally right.

In 2021, it was scientifically known that children were not at risk for Covid. Teachers’ unions, however, lobbied for continued school closures and masks for children. In July 2021, UNMC and the College of Public Health issued a report recommending that Nebraska school children be universally face masked, when indoors, for the coming school year. Dr. Ali Kahn leads the College of Public Health and he signed the report with others.

A study of studies was published in November of 2023. It shows that masks on children were not effective and, in fact, were very harmful to many kids. Certainly the health care academics at UNMC knew, or should have known, that the benefits of masks for kids was outweighed by the costs. For some reason, the Nebraska health care academic leaders couldn’t figure out what matters most.

When I spoke to Regents, I told them of the U.S. Navy’s accountability policy. If a ship captain runs a ship aground, he or she is fired. It’s a bright line rule. Likewise, when top Nebraska academic leaders make serious errors in judgment they need to be fired. If there is no accountability, the mistakes will continue.

After the budget, the most important job of the Regents is to hire and fire the top leaders. Dr. Jeffery Gold, UNMC’s current chancellor, is the Regents’ priority candidate for president. The obvious problem with Dr. Gold is that he has presided over a culture of failure and harm to children at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The culture must be changed and Dr. Gold is clearly not a change agent. He’s really the worst possible candidate.

Deep problems at the University of Nebraska system

By David D. Begley

In early February, I delivered to Trev Alberts a book. In it is the following quote, “So be careful of the way you end things, and devote more to a successful exit than to a highly applauded entrance.” I guess he didn’t get to that part of the book.

Even though I’m a Creighton alum, I have a deep love for the state of Nebraska. The University of Nebraska system is very important to our state and it needs to be successful for Nebraska to improve and grow.

Leadership at the top is vital to success. Creighton has been blessed with great presidents: Fathers Reinert, Morrison, Schlegel and Hendrickson. These men had long tenures and the full support of their Board.

The problems in the athletic department are symptomatic of much deeper failures in the University of Nebraska system. As important as athletics are to Nebraskans, the lives of our children are much more important.

To this day, I remain astounded that the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medicine engaged in child mutilation and medical experiments on children under the guise of “gender-affirming” care.

This grievous error in judgment was probably approved of at the top. At the top of UNMC is Dr. James Linder. I told the Regents to fire him back in December 2023.

Luka Hein has sued her Nebraska health care providers for medical malpractice. If successful, she will collect millions. To prevail, her lawyers will need to satisfy a jury that the medical standard of care for Omaha was not followed. But the larger ethical question is: How was it ever a good idea to voluntarily give minors powerful sex change drugs and remove healthy female breasts? England has been at it for some time and its NHS has totally stopped gender affirming care for minors because of the bad results.

Last session, Sen. Kathleen Kauth introduced a bill to correct the bad judgment of UNMC’s leaders. Senators Machala Cavanaugh and Megan Hunt were violently opposed and so they staged a session-long filibuster and “burned the session to the ground;” their words not mine.

All of this drama and time was the result of one horrible decision at UNMC that never should have been made. “First, do no harm” means exactly what it says.  

In 2024, we now know that the government’s response to Covid was completely wrong. It was the biggest unforced policy error in US history and we will be paying the price for decades. But no leader has been held accountable for being so, so wrong.

Sweden, alone in the world, took a different approach; no business or school closures, no masks and protect the elderly. The excess death numbers are now in and the Swedes were totally right.

In 2021, it was scientifically known that children were not at risk for Covid. Teachers’ unions, however, lobbied for continued school closures and masks for children. In July 2021, UNMC and the College of Public Health issued a report recommending that Nebraska school children be universally face masked, when indoors, for the coming school year. Dr. Ali Kahn leads the College of Public Health and he signed the report with others.

A study of studies was published in November of 2023. It shows that masks on children were not effective and, in fact, were very harmful to many kids. Certainly the health care academics at UNMC knew, or should have known, that the benefits of masks for kids were outweighed by the costs. For some reason, the Nebraska health care academic leaders couldn’t figure out what matters most.

When I spoke to Regents, I told them of the U.S. Navy’s accountability policy. If a ship captain runs a ship aground, he or she is fired. It’s a bright line rule. Likewise, when top Nebraska academic leaders make serious errors in judgment they need to be fired. If there is no accountability, the mistakes will continue.

After the budget, the most important job of the Regents is to hire and fire the top leaders. Right now, the Regents are failing at the job they were elected to do. Because they ran their ships aground, the Regents should fire Dr. James Linder and Dr. Ali Kahn.

Why I support Vivek for President

Driving home from my fourth time seeing Vivek, I thought about the best way to summarize him. Here’s my take: He’s the fresh legs America First 2.0 candidate with a specific and bold action plan.

I personally saw every single presidential candidate in both 2016 and 2020. Vivek is the most impressive one and that’s by a large margin. If you today could vote for Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson, would you? Sure you would, even though you might not agree with them on everything.

Vivek is a man of extraordinary talents who – at age 38 – is offering himself in service to his country. We need him to fix the country and the time is late. Joe Biden has taken the country to a new low. He’s the smartest (and richest) person I have ever met.

Omaha native and billionaire Charlie Munger recently passed away. One of his maxims was, “Take a simple idea and take it seriously.” Vivek did that very thing while in law school. He had worked on Wall Street after earning his biology degree from Harvard. While in law school, he met his wife. At some point while still in law school he told her that Big Pharma was doing it all wrong and he was going to start his own biotech company. Her response? Wouldn’t it be a good idea for work for someone else first? Nope. He started Roivant Sciences, found five drugs that had been abandoned by Big Pharma and got them approved. And that’s how he became a multi-millionaire before age 40.

His America First 2.0 agenda is:

1. Shut down the Administrative, Deep State.
2. Declare independence from Communist China.
3. Unleash the American economy and grow it at a 5% rate.
4. Revive American National Identity.

He started his stump speech in Cherokee, Iowa (standing room only crowd) by saying his campaign is founded on truth. And he will speak the truth to our side and even when it is hard.

His campaign is very much founded in the revolutionary ideals that made our country the greatest the world has ever seen. His speech pivoted around the ten truths listed on his campaign website. But first I want to recount his answer to my question.

I first praised him for opposing the carbon dioxide pipeline proposed for Iowa. He’s the only presidential candidate who is opposed. Apparently, even Iowa’s governor and the state GOP favors this project and using the state’s power of eminent domain to acquire the land.

He’s opposed to these pipelines because they are all part of the climate change hoax. I call it a scam. The entire CAGW industry is driven by the wildly generous federal income tax credits. The guy who is the CEO of this project is a former Wall Streeter who lives (for now) in Ames, Iowa. The CAGW scam is all about making certain people rich while we all pay higher prices for everything. What’s really crazy about this scam is that the vast bulk of carbon dioxide is coming from India and China and there’s nothing that we can do in the United States to lower the current 0.045% of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

I suggested that he take up the populist issue of a federal interest rate cap on credit cards or make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy. He seemed interested in the credit card interest rate issue. It’s worth noting that Joe Biden was on the Judiciary Committee when the Bankruptcy Code was being rewritten. There was a push at that time to treat student loan debt like nearly all other debt, but the banks didn’t want that. By most accounts, Joe helped out the banks. His son, St. Beau Biden, then got a job with a bank.

The question that Vivek did answer was, “How did you know that Nikki and Chris didn’t know the names of three eastern Ukraine provinces? ” You see, it is a huge risk to ask a question like that and not knowing in advance what your opponent will say. It’s a cardinal rule of cross-examination. And the stakes couldn’t be personally higher.

Vivek’s answer, “I have full confidence that these people are intellectual frauds, actually. The answer is in both parties. It’s not just these individuals; it’s the establishment. They will send your kids to die so that they can buy a bigger house; in both parties. Biden sending $200 billion of our taxpayer money to Ukraine because Ukraine paid him a $5 million bribe to his son. And the Republican party is no better. The people who told us about Iraq and Afghanistan, they had no idea about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They just nod their heads and do what their masters tell them to do. And I wanted to reveal to this country that those who preach foreign policy experience, do not have basic foreign policy wisdom…. Let’s use our own money to protect our country, our border. Use our own military.”

The beauty of Vivek’s plan is that as President, he can do what he says he will do and he doesn’t have to get permission from Congress. And SCOTUS will back him 6-3. And as President, he will act fast and in the first six months. Send the US military right to the border. Drill, mine and frack. Lay off half the federal bureaucracy. If the last digit of your Social Security number is odd, you’re laid off. The entire Department of Education will be abolished and the $80 billion will be given to parents to decide how their children will be educated. Many other policy moves like this.

Vivek’s entire plan is pure genius. He doesn’t owe anything to donors. He will work just for the American people. “My sole moral duty is to you; not another country.”

During the last debate, Chris Christie told Vivek that he was a bully, annoying and a blowhard. That was rich. I’ve seen all the candidates and that describes Christie to a T.

Some people say that Vivek is arrogant. I asked two Cherokee County residents at my table that very question. The wife said she didn’t think so and likes Vivek because he tells it like it is. In that way, he’s like Trump. “I will always tell you what I believe.”

My view is that Vivek has confidence; not arrogance. And to be successful in life, you have to be confident. Vivek’s confidence is driven by his intellect and, what is obvious to me, his deep study of many subjects. Later in his speech he admitted he’s not perfect and none of us is God. That’s humility.

Contrast Vivek to Barack Obama. How many times did Obama say, “That’s not who we are?” What?! Who decides who we are? Barack? And my personal favorite, “We are the one we have been waiting for.”

The polls show that Donald Trump has a giant lead in the polls. But he will be convicted (unjustly) in DC federal court and the trial judge will send him to jail the day the verdict is returned. Lots of things can happen.

Vivek’s best days are ahead of him. If he doesn’t get the nomination, Trump would be smart to name Vivek as his VP. Trump would be CEO and Vivek would be COO of America First 2.0.

Do yourself a favor and go to Vivek’s website and listen to the many podcasts there. You’ll be impressed with how smart he is and how deeply he’s thought about our country and what he would do to make us great again.

OPPD’s Twin Mandate: Low Cost and Reliability

Would you buy a car or a computer knowing in advance that it would only work less than half the time – and sporadically at that – even if you felt (emphasis on the word “felt”) that your purchase would save the planet from burning up in the year 2100?

But OPPD has done exactly that with its August 2023 Near Term Generation resolution. The price tag today is two billion dollars. That, however, doesn’t take into account that its engineers forced the OPPD Board to first spend about $450 million on two reliable natural gas-fired electricity production plants. These two new power stations are conveniently located very near to computer data centers that ostensibly only want renewable power. The prudent action, of course, would be not to waste two billion dollars on inefficient and unreliable wind and solar plants.

The wasteful and foolish spending of over two billion dollars by the OPPD Board is also contrary to its statutory duties. Nebraska law imposes a twin mandate on public power: reliability and low cost. Solar and wind power are neither. OPPD, however, ignores its statutory duty because its directors feel (emphasis on the word “feel”) that their personal beliefs come before their statutory duties. In other words, the rule of law doesn’t apply to OPPD because its directors say so. Ipse dixit.

OPPD is currently projecting that this spending spree will result in at least a 10% rate increase. Given OPPD’s record regarding projections, the rate increase will certainly be more than 10%. Wyoming is looking at a 29% rate increase.

OPPD’s directors believe that achieving net zero carbon by 2050 is essential to saving the planet from burning up in 2100. Little, tiny Omaha apparently has that power. In order to achieve the net zero carbon goal, OPPD has an ambitious plan to add 1,000 to 1,500 MW of solar and wind power. The belief is that carbon dioxide generated by coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants emit carbon dioxide which causes global warming.

            Statistics Norway, an official agency of the country of Norway, has just debunked that theory. “We find … that the effect of man-made CO2 emissions does not appear to be strong enough to cause systematic changes in temperature fluctuations during the last 200 years.” In other words, catastrophic anthropogenic global warming theory is the biggest scam in the history of the world. The billions spent on wind and solar power generation has all been for naught. It’s been a giant Keynesian ditch digging scheme.

            Mr. Corbin cites in his October 15 Midlands Voice piece the federal funding available to Nebraska via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This spending bill has fueled our record inflation that only benefits groups favored by the Democrats. Wind and solar already receive huge subsidies. But, per usual, the Left is never satisfied. Our $33 trillion debt will only grow higher as the IRA generates more unreliable power projects.

            People need to appreciate that the IRA creates federal income tax credits. That means that instead of corporations sending their tax money to the Treasury, the corporation gets a dollar-for-dollar credit to their federal tax bill. At a recent Berkshire-Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha, CEO Warren Buffett acknowledged that MidAmerican Energy got a $1 billion federal tax credit for its purchase of wind turbines. Mr. Buffett also said that if it wasn’t for the federal tax credits, the wind turbines never would have been purchased. With the IRA, Wall Street will now be able to bundle and sell tax credits.  

            George W. Norris is the father of public power in Nebraska. He was spot on when he wrote, “Men are often biased in their judgment on account of their sympathy and interests.”

Catholic Opposition to Net Zero Carbon Policy

By David D. Begley

August 28, 2023

As a Catholic and graduate of Creighton University, there is nothing more annoying to me than getting lectured by two Creighton professors that it is somehow my duty as a Catholic to go along with the net zero carbon goal set by the Left. Catholic support for science-based city climate action plan for Omaha | Nebraska Examiner It is a sleazy appeal to authority. Using the critical thinking skill I learned from the Jesuits, it was easy for me to concluded that catastrophic anthropologic global warming (CAGW) is the biggest scam in the history of the world. 

In the first place, carbon dioxide is only considered a pollutant within the meaning of the Clear Air Act because of a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court in 2007. More recently, the Supreme Court has ruled that major policy questions – such as net zero carbon – must be decided by Congress and not an unelected administrative agency.

Popes Urban VIII, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis were not, and are not, scientists. They are not infallible in the area of science because it doesn’t deal with faith and morals. They were all trained in theology. They need to stay in their area of authority and competence because when they wander, it diminishes their credibility.

Dr. John F. Clauser won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. Dr. Edward Teller worked on the Manhattan Project and invented the hydrogen bomb. Both are of the firm scientific opinion that greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide) are not a threat to mankind. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas in the atmosphere. To the extent that the climate changes, it is not a crisis. People adapt. That has always been the case.

As a lawyer, I know a scam when I see one. As a matter of law, a prediction of a future event is not actionable fraud. That’s why when Al Gore predicted that the Artic Ocean would be ice-free by 2013, he couldn’t be sued for fraud when it didn’t happen. It is also worth noting that for the last 50 years, all the Left’s predictions of doom have been totally wrong. Why are they right now?

Since the early days of the CAGW scam, the Left has become more sophisticated in how they have run it. Now they say that net zero must be achieved by 2040 so that we won’t burn up in the year 2100. But nearly everyone now living in Omaha will be dead by 2100. In the meantime, the Left would have us waste billions of dollars. Money that could be spent on useful things.

Consider this: The City of Omaha doesn’t even have one million people. China and India have 2.8 billion people. Both countries are rapidly building coal-fired power plants. The notion that tiny Omaha could somehow change the climate of the planet by enacting a climate action plan is a virtue signaling absurdity.

The Jesuits taught me to be concerned for others and that includes the poor. One of the biggest threats to the poor of Omaha is the Omaha Public Power District’s net zero carbon policy. OPPD is a creature of statute. Nebraska has never adopted a net zero carbon law. Therefore, OPPD’s policy is contrary to Nebraska law and it had no legal authority to enact it.

This month OPPD passed a resolution to add more power generation to the grid. More than $2 billion will be spent and it is projected to raise electric rates by at least 10%. That’s a regressive action that hits the poor the hardest.

            Of the new power, OPPD says it wants 90% of it to be solar, wind and battery storage. Battery storage is necessary because wind and solar are not reliable. It is the height of irresponsibility to build unreliable wind and solar. It is wasteful and expensive.

            The Center for the American Experiment has studied the consequences of net zero carbon polices in other states. The results are uniform: Rates will triple. That’s consistent with the electric rates in Germany where the Greens have been in charge for years.

            I do agree with the authors about prudence. As Baltasar Gracian, S.J. wrote, “To be prudent, it isn’t enough not to meddle in other people’s business: you must keep them from meddling in yours.”

The Smearing of Justice Clarence Thomas

By David D. Begley

August 11, 2023

Pro Publica, a leftwing website funded by the liberal Sandler Foundation, ran another hit piece on Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas is married to Ginni Lamp Thomas, an Omaha native and my former classmate at Creighton Law School, although I can’t claim her as a friend.

The so-called investigative journalism of Pro Publica is misleading, inaccurate, and full of innuendo. It is a continuation of the high-tech lynching of a great jurist simply because he is Black and conservative. He wouldn’t withdraw in the face of Anita Hill’s obvious lies. And for the Democrats, that was unforgivable. The Left doesn’t like his decisions so they attack him by any means necessary. This is consistent with the Left’s attempts to destroy the Supreme Court as an institution respected by all Americans. In the words of Sen. Charles Schumer, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” That sure sounds like an actionable threat of physical violence that the Department of Justice should investigate.

Justice Thomas, his wife, and myself are all beneficiaries of a Jesuit education. As the late Fr. John P. Schlegel, S.J., former president of Creighton University, frequently said, “A Jesuit education teaches you how to think; not what to think.” We were taught to think critically.

A critical examination of the Pro Publica report presents two questions: (1). Did any of the people who extended hospitality to Justice Thomas have any cases pending before the Supreme Court? (2). Were any ethics rules violated? The answer to both questions is a resounding “no.” Hence, there is no controversy here.

Justice Thomas was relying upon the well-established reporting exemption for personal hospitality. It makes no difference if his friends are wealthy. In America, we have bright-line rules. If the speed limit is 75 and you are driving 70, then you don’t get a speeding ticket; regardless of race or station in life.

Dr. Tom Osborne got dragged into this story. He let Justice Thomas sit in his skybox at Memorial Stadium; a skybox that the University gave him in gratitude for his years of service. Look at this situation from Osborne’s point-of-view. Who wouldn’t want to watch a football game with a guy who is knowledgeable about the game, is a Nebraska fan and has a very interesting job. Genius enjoys the companionship of fellow genius. Both of these men are allowed, in a free country, to enjoy each other’s company and have a good time. The Left, however, disapproves of good times if both men are conservatives.

Pro Publica trots out “judicial ethics experts” but omits the fact that all three have only made campaign contributions to Democrats and that Professor Painter ran for public office as a Democrat. Not even-handed at all.

Pro Publica also omitted the fact that the Judicial Conference – the controlling ethics authority for federal judges – dismissed all allegations of ethics violations against Justice Thomas for his Harlan Crow trips back in 2012.

One of the most disgusting aspects of the Pro Publica story is that alleged friends of Ginni Thomas provided Pro Publica with post cards depicting some of their vacation trips. As the saying goes, “With friends like this….”

One of my personal axioms is, “The Left never quits.” The Democrats couldn’t stop the confirmation of Clarence Thomas so they try to smear him. Again. It won’t work with fair-minded Americans. One hundred years from now Justice Clarence Thomas will be remembered as a great Justice. Pro Publica will be out of business and forgotten. But in the meantime, the reputation of Pro Publica for unfairness will continue to grow.  

Churchill

“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” Winston Churchill

Senator Hunt’s Defamation Lawsuit is Fatally Flawed

Former state senator and practicing lawyer Adam Morfeld issued a press release last week. It read, in part, “Today we have filed litigation (sic) against the Nebraska Freedom Coalition….” The Twitter account of the Nebraska Legal Action Fund used the same language.

Note well the use of the word “we.” Mr. Morfeld was referencing his Nebraska Legal Action Fund. It was incorporated on November 21, 2022. The Articles of Incorporation state that it was organized, “exclusively for civic and educational purposes.” The Articles go on to state that its mission is, “to educate Nebraskans on and to combat extremism.” Furthermore, the Articles recite it was formed for “making distributions to organizations under Section 501C.4 (sic) of the Internal Revenue Code.”

The Nebraska Supreme Court has adopted rules which all attorneys must follow. One of the rules is that only professional service legal corporations – owned entirely by lawyers – can practice law. Neb. Ct. R. §3-604 states that “corporations shall not practice law,” but there is an exception for “nonprofit charitable or benevolent organizations organized primarily for a purpose other than the provision of legal services and which furnish legal services as an incidental activity in furtherance of their primary purpose….”

A fair question here is whether the lawsuit filed by Nebraska Legal Action Fund is permitted under the rule. Its own Articles of Incorporation state that its exclusive purpose is civic and educational. An exclusive purpose is different than a primary purpose. Also, a fair question is whether Nebraska Legal Action Fund is in the business of filing lawsuits or is it just an incidental activity.   

Another court rule is that a complaint shall contain “a short and plain statement of the claim….” The complaint is anything but short and plain as it is filed with adjectives, lurid language and case citations. There is a completely irrelevant paragraph about a 2020 shooting death.

Attorney Morfeld alleged that the defendants committed defamation per se by accusing Senator Hunt of the crime of “grooming.” All crimes in Nebraska are statutory. “Grooming” is not a crime prohibited by statute and found in Chapter 28 of the Nebraska Revised Statutes which is titled, “Crimes and Punishments.”

There is a prohibition that teachers not groom students, but it is not a crime. The law prohibiting “grooming” is found in Chapter 79 titled, “Schools.”

It may be good public policy to make “grooming” a crime, but former Senator Morfeld didn’t see fit to do so during his eight years in the Unicameral.

The complaint asks for attorney’s fees. The Nebraska Supreme Court has repeatedly held that, “attorney fees are recoverable only where provided by statute or when a recognized and accepted uniform course of procedure allows recovery…” That’s not the case with a defamation case; a type of tort.

Senator Hunt’s complaint also asks for prejudgment interest. There is a statute allowing that in certain cases, but tort claims aren’t included.

The larger issue is whether the defendants’ speech is protected under the First Amendment and the New York Times case. I won’t opine on that other than to state that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week in Counterman v Colorado that the New York Times case is still good law.

The district court judge assigned to this case will first examine the complaint to see if he has jurisdiction. That means the issue of the authority of Nebraska Legal Action Fund to file lawsuits will be examined. Most certainly a Motion to Dismiss will be filed testing the defamation per se issue along with whether the defendants’ speech is constitutionally protected.

Vivek in Sioux City, Iowa

A carpet store in Sioux City, Iowa is an unlikely place to participate in an intensely interesting and intellectually thrilling dialogue, but I was in the room where it happened.

One of Vivek’s campaign slogans is Truth.  He brings the truth in an unvarnished fashion.  He has thought deeply about the things that need to be changed in America and he has a detailed – and workable – plan.  As a former CEO of a multi-billion-dollar biotech company, he knows the role and power of the executive.

He started out with a shortened version of his stump speech.  My first report on it is here: Vivek in Iowa – American Thinker

Vivek made three promises:

1. Shut down the administrative state.  The Department of Education will be eliminated.  That’s a savings of $90 billion per year. Civil service protection will be eliminated.  An eight-year term limit on federal bureaucrats.

• Declare our independence from China.  We depend on our enemy for our modern life.  This is do-able.  More on this below.

• Revive national pride in America.  People – especially young people – must have a stake in this country.  You only value what you have a stake in.  We need to revive the values on which America was founded.  Part of that will be to end race-based discrimination and the President can do that.  He doesn’t need the permission of Congress.

The real action was during the Q and A.  It was something.  At one point, Vivek remarked about how much he enjoyed the questions.  He also praised Iowans for the seriousness with which they take their role as first in the nation to vote in the primaries.

I asked the first question about China.  I wanted more detail considering the news that it is now certain that China intentionally engineered the virus with gain-of-function actions and then either negligently or intentionally released it on the world.  I also noted the news of a Chinese spy base in Cuba along with the persistent problem of IP theft.

Vivek gave a long and detailed answer.  He commented that Joe and his family have been paid off by the Chinese.  But they aren’t the only ones.  Blackrock, the NBA and others have also been bribed.  Right now, China is weak and we can pull the rug out from under China.  China either meets our demands or we “cut the cord.”

The key thing is that we must not allow the budding Russia-China military alliance to continue.  By ending the Ukraine war, this is possible.  We have no national interest in Ukraine.  Give Russia some land, but force it to end its military alliance with China.

While Ukraine is not critical to American life, we do have a national interest in Taiwan as it supplies what we need for modern life: semiconductors.

The next question was from a corn farmer.  He wanted to know Vivek’s position on biofuels.  He’s for it as part of his core policy of American energy independence.  He said as recently as 2021, we were energy independent.  He then corrected himself and said it was 2019.

Vivek founded Roivant Sciences.  Today it has a market capitalization of over $7 billion.  He approached the industry as an outsider.  He figured out he could develop drugs that Big Pharma had abandoned.  It worked and he got five drugs approved.

His personal experience with the FDA lead to another conclusion.  He would cut the FDA’s staff by 90% as the bulk of what it does is unnecessary and beyond its statutory authority.  As a biotech investor, I wanted to stand and cheer.

People ask him how can he shut down the administrative state.  The President has the statutory authority to do so under 5 U.S.C. §3302.  There’s no need for Congress to pass a law because it’s already the law.

But what about the lawsuits?  SCOTUS had adopted the unitary Executive theory, that is, the President is elected to run the entire Executive Branch and that means he can fire people who work there.  Vivek is correct on the law here.

The next question was about the economy and the dollar.  Vivek is firmly opposed to Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).  That’s because it means even more government control over your life.  Say something “wrong” on social media, and you can get cutoff from your bank account.  Canada did that during the truckers’ strike.

He wants the US dollar to be stable.  To do that he’ll tie it to a basket of commodities.  He’ll cut the Federal Reserve’s staff of 23,000 (who knew?) by 90%.  The Fed will only have a single mandate of controlling inflation.  That’s how we keep our status as the world’s reserve currency.

A question came up about our current national debt of $31 trillion.  The solution is to grow GDP.  He’s the only candidate talking about growth.  That’s possible if American fossil fuel production is unleashed.

Readers need to keep an eye on him in the debates.  America will be blown away by this guy.