I’ve been extremely surprised by the whole university presidents Congressional hearing debacle. First, I’m surprised by the number of people who think Rep. Stefanik was somehow acting in good faith or is some sort of friend of Jewish people. She wasn’t and she isn’t. Second, I’m surprised by the people who think the university presidents were somehow tricked or couldn’t have answered differently. They weren’t and they could’ve.

Gather around, my friends, and let’s talk about the public library for a minute.

In Nebraska, a handful of extremists have spent a few years hurling abuse at their local library staff and before it gets any more out of control, library boards are trying to placate them. For example, the Fremont library board is considering creating a tiered card system so that parents can make sure that their kids can’t check out material that’s inappropriate for their age. It won’t stop the extremists from calling librarians “groomers,” but it’s a fine idea.

Wow, this article about Nebraska’s combined anti-trans and abortion ban bill.
Hat tip to Senator Armendariz, who says she doesn’t know anything about the issue, doesn’t pay attention to current events, and wishes the bill she voted for hadn’t been introduced.
It passed by 1 vote. These are the people who devoted an entire legislative session to taking away people’s rights in the face of massive opposition from experts and ordinary citizens. They openly admit that none of their constituents mentioned this issue to them and they don’t know much about it. 🤷‍♂️

When I tell you that @jim_pillen is an extremist and that his policy preferences are out of step with the citizens of this state, you can believe me. Or you can read it for yourself. He put it all on his website. He wants to ban from public schools every subject and every lesson with which he doesn’t personally agree. And he wants Jesus in public school. He’s clear that he’ll be a governor for Christians. Not Christian? Well you probably should be. Why would anyone vote for this theocrat?

I had the opportunity to attend a very small gathering yesterday at which @jim_pillen spoke and fielded questions for about 40 minutes. One thing that struck me was that he was well-prepared and a big part of that preparation involved how not to answer any questions he faced. Pillen was repeatedly challenged on his extreme position on abortion, on his desire to ban all sorts of things he doesn’t want to be taught in public schools, and on the way in which he wants to make his faith into the state’s religion. He dodged literally every question.

It really is astonishing what a handful of right wing extremists can do if you empower them. A long thread.
metro.newschannelnebraska.com/story/45323721… When I moved to Nebraska in 2007, the university was universally beloved. In fact, I used to tell my colleagues in other states how nice it was to live in a place where everyone loved the university because everyone had some sort of personal connection to it.

It’s still shocking to me that one of the most-watched television networks in America exists almost exclusively to lie to its viewers, undermining our democracy and public health, for the financial benefit of a few people.

https://twitter.com/drcraigwax/status/1453920349758894081

The guy they’re featuring is a totally discredited quack who was fired for continually spreading Covid misinformation. There’s a restraining order against him because he kept suggesting he worked at the place that fired him.
examiner-enterprise.com/story/news/202…

Due to a whole bunch of decisions made by others prior to his presidency, Biden faced a set of bad options. He could blow up Trump’s deal with the Taliban but that would require committing more troops to Afghanistan, something he opposed and Americans had no interest in doing. Or he could withdraw, as he was committed to doing by others, and get tagged with losing the war and abandoning our allies to our enemies. He made the call he made, though on a slightly extended timeline. People insisting there’s a 3rd option should immediately say what it is.

We did it, Douglas County! Out of the Green and back into the Yellow!

I don’t have the words for how upset I am right now. I guess I’ll channel all that energy into figuring out what to do for my kids since so many in our community are committed to making things unsafe for them.

As the spouse of a political candidate, off the top of my head I can tell you 50 examples of toxic behavior a candidate will face for being a woman, too young, a mom, a member of a minority group, a graduate degree holder, not progressive enough, not centrist enough, and more. The way that people interact with political candidates—especially young people, women, and members of historically targeted groups—is one big reason many exceptional people from these groups don’t run for office. Sara could write a book about the abusive behavior she encountered.

So @RepMTG, here’s the thing. My grandmother is a rational Jewish person. She survived Auschwitz and she also survived Michigan’s mask mandate. The differences in her stories about the two experiences seem pretty clear to me, but admittedly I’ve known the woman my whole life. 1/4

https://twitter.com/biancabuono/status/1395955435128033280

When she was deported to Auschwitz, the Nazis attempted to murder her entire family, along with millions of others. She was incredibly lucky and she survived at Auschwitz, and at other camps, as a slave laborer. Most of her family perished. 2/4

I’m watching the #ne02debate with my family tonight on a 30 minute delay, as it’s my daughter’s birthday and she wanted a spaghetti dinner followed by cake...and she wanted to watch the debate with me. So, we finished our cake and now it’s debate time! We’ve been going for one minute and @DonJBacon has already referenced @BernieSanders and called @karaforcongress radical while he pretends that voting with the GOP and Trump almost 95% of the time is what bipartisanship means.

Well, they haven’t said a word and it’s already terrible. Starting on the Supreme Court vacancy, Donald Trump is calmly explaining that having power is all that matters. “We won the election so we have the right to do it.” Biden says what Mitch McConnell said in 2016, except the election has already started this time.

Watching the Omaha City Council meeting and it’s time for public comment on the extension of the mask mandate. It’s going about as you’d expect. Freedom of religion not to wear masks. A doctor who reports on her presentation to a conference on fringe science topics and climate denialism. A couple guys who say they personally believe the city is violating their personal beliefs. A chiropractor talking about vaccine injury.

I see that I missed the latest in @NEGOP-in-disarray for this election cycle: the seemingly never-ending mayonnaise fight between Julie Slama and Janet Palmtag, which is actually a proxy war between old school Nebraskans Republicans and @GovRicketts brand of alt-right d-baggery. It’s a fight over a unicameral seat that Ricketts gave to Julie Slama, a 24 year old law student and former press secretary for his reelection campaign, the one where they also employed a white supremacist. Slama’s campaign is run by Jessica Flanagain, Ricketts’s campaign manager

This week has been so difficult. Obviously we're at a point of absolute national crisis and that takes up a lot of mental space. But here in Omaha and of course also in Louisville, we're hammered by examples of a justice system that doesn't function for one part of our community. If we're not talking about the murders of James Scurlock and Breonna Taylor because they happened somewhere else to someone else, or because we're focused on all the other terrible things that are happening, then we're ignoring the way that these murders are allowed, legitimated.

The most upsetting thing isn’t all the examples that our Executive Branch is run by a gang of grifting authoritarian wannabes. It’s all the members of the GOP who won’t say a single word about any of it.

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1308916144972222466

I’m currently “represented” by a retired brigadier general and he has absolutely given up on even pretending that he has a role to play in preserving the norms and institutions of our country.

BIG NEWS!!!

I'm incredibly excited to share that my wife Sara is running for City Council! She'll be a tireless advocate for our community and everyone who lives here.

Visit saraforomaha.com and join her team. The primary election is in April and she needs your support!

https://twitter.com/sara_kohen/status/1308429332419874818

What an amazing morning! It’s actually been a little overwhelming to see the support for @sara_kohen’s campaign.

If you want to help out—and we’ll need lots of help between now and April!—you can sign up to volunteer here: saraforomaha.com/volunteer

This isn’t the first such survey. What happens every time one of these surveys is released is that everyone is outraged and then we go right back to whatever we were doing. The question is: how will these survey results change what we do?

https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1306193380033138689

Several years ago, a colleague and I started studying the way that the Holocaust is taught to undergraduate students and how to be most effective. We held a conference at @UNLincoln. Then we were approached by an amazing donor who created an endowment so we could keep doing them.

OK. So, this normalization of relations between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain could maybe use a little unpacking because everyone is trying to jam their analysis into one tweet and a bunch of different things can be true about this event at the same. First of all, it's a big deal. Just because you don't like Trump or Bibi or these particular Arab countries doesn't invalidate what's happening or render it unimportant. Establishing formal relationships is good for the people who live there and could yield more such agreements.

I’m very glad to see quotes from @precious1979 and @JaKeenFox in this article; they’re doing so much work against the casual white supremacy of 3 quoted white guys who belittle the experiences of BIPOC Omahans and ignore the history of racism in this city. nytimes.com/2020/09/05/us/… I mean, this article has it all. First we have a Trump supporter who does a “both sides” to the Civil War in order to better excuse Robert E. Lee:

“He just happened to be on that side of the battlefield,” Mr. Thomsen said. “There were certainly Union people that did bad things.”