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For years people have worn buttons and T-shirts and placed yard signs in support of their candidates. I drive throughout Lincoln from Adams Street north, Sixth Street to 84th and all the way home to Hickman and I鈥檝e seen four signs for Trump, hundreds for Harris.
Lincoln is a blue dot but the 1st Congressional District encompasses so many rural counties Republicans tend to win the district. After running three times as the Republican nominee for president, maybe Trump and his lies, hate, nonsensical gibberish, promising to go after his opponents, especially the news outlets and comedy parody have turned off voters.
Are Nebraska鈥檚 true conservatives embarrassed to advertise their support for Trump? Unlike national Republicans who have pledged their support for Harris, maybe we will be surprised to see a landslide for Harris.
People tend to blame whoever is president for everything but the House and Senate must agree for laws and policies to pass. Maybe the nation will ultimately realize that hope, kindness, care for the poor and the lost, personal rights for health care choices, a path to citizenship, financial help for first time home buyers, a clean energy plan, preserving Social Security and Medicare, fair wages, sensible gun legislation, and opposition to book bans are all policies that Kamala Harris supports in order to move our country forward not backward.
Barbara Griffith, Hickman
I don鈥檛 understand how folks can believe false claims lacking any evidence while dismissing facts staring them in the face.
I鈥檓 talking about many claims by Trump and his minions versus evidence of climate change. We鈥檝e known that CO2 is a greenhouse gas since 1896 and climate scientists have been warning about its effects for 50 years. Farmers who reject it still move their planting dates forward. Glaciers are melting. We have unprecedented forest fires. And our warming oceans have spawned more and weirder hurricanes. Yet a certain political party still doubts its reality. Both our senators recently voted against additional money for FEMA so it can handle the next catastrophe.
MAGA Republicans seem to only worry about the short term and winning, but they鈥檙e not concerned about the world their grandchildren will inherit. Well, friends, global warming has been gestating for 200 years, and it won鈥檛 stop growing even if nobody ever added another molecule of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. It takes decades to get CO2 out of the atmosphere, and the slope of the track this particular ball has been rolling down won鈥檛 start to level off until it does. Even when it flattens its momentum won鈥檛 slow it down for decades. Things will get much worse before they improve. Depending on Antarctica, Miami could share Atlantis鈥 fate.
Think about who has worried about your grandchildren鈥檚, and their grandchildren鈥檚, world when you vote.
Bill Prange, Lincoln
We are a nation of immigrants: No person in America has the moral standing to deny entry to other immigrants. And our nation has more than enough physical space, social strength and the robust legal framework to bring these individuals fully into our society through expedited citizenship. Our nation鈥檚 xenophobic policies of this decade are indefensible due to our foreign policies of decades past. The correct and proper thing to do is allow migrants and refugees into our nation while helping them adapt through social safety nets.
Undocumented migrants work low-paying and dangerous jobs that nonetheless are essential to the American system we all enjoy. And they pay sales tax on everything they buy, as well paying wage taxes. This means that every undocumented migrant contributes objectively more to this country and its economy than any billionaire.
Unfortunately, dismantling civilization is the heart of right-wing politics, and this means breaking social safety nets and vilifying those most destitute and powerless in our society.
Don鈥檛 buy into hating the impoverished. Stop blaming immigrants for your failures.
It is systemic failure that produces such poverty, not an individual鈥檚 failings. Our society has plenty to supply every individual with the means to live and thrive in a safe home.
White-collar crime and the rollback of regulations have plunged this nation into economic despair and stolen the future from subsequent generations. We sorely need enforcement of the law, missing due to police being useless unaccountable thugs for the wealthy.
Chris Keller, Lincoln
It鈥檚 hard but necessary to believe what I read about the process of the current election. When I read that Donald Trump and JD Vance refuse to participate in interviews that 鈥渇act-check鈥 what they say, it seems I鈥檓 in some fictional world. Is it true that they feel no shame in demanding the right to be untruthful? My parents who identified as Republicans insisted their children be honorable and truthful; what would they say if they were living now?
Judith Gibson, Lincoln
At a campaign rally last week in Michigan, former president Donald Trump claimed that 鈥淜amala has spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants.鈥
Could it possibly be true? This is the sort of question Duke University鈥檚 Bill Adair and a team of student reporters have been asking themselves for 17 years as they鈥檝e fact-checked politicians and other public figures for the PolitiFact website that Adair created in 2007.
The answer, of course, is no. As William Shakespeare might have said, it is a lie 鈥渢old by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.鈥
The truth is that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has two distinct funds. One is to help cities temporarily house migrants. An entirely separate $20 billion fund was created by Congress for disaster relief. This one is running low because of the number and scope of disasters this year, but the two funds are not interchangeable, nor is either being used for purposes other than those intended.
During and after Hurricanes Milton and Helene, FEMA has been present and working to help victims, largely to the acclaim of state and local leaders.聽
At a news conference to address Helene鈥檚 damage to parts of the state, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, said federal assistance had 鈥渂een superb.鈥 He mentioned that President Joe Biden, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell had each called to offer support.
This is what one would expect from federal officials during a crisis, and it wouldn鈥檛 require highlighting but for Trump鈥檚 intentional lies.
As a rule, I鈥檓 not one to use the words 鈥渓ie,鈥 鈥渓ying鈥 or 鈥渓iar.鈥 Their power to destroy someone鈥檚 reputation is too great for comfort. But Trump has forced many of us, including Adair, to abandon the soft-pedaling etiquette of euphemism and to say what is factual. Lying, for Trump, is so reflexive that he needn鈥檛 bestir his fourth-grade vocabulary to seize headlines and malign those he finds inconvenient to his purposes.
Will things ever change? Not soon, says Adair. Unfortunately, lying pays dividends in today鈥檚 universe of partisan television, radio and social media, and for a complicit political base manipulated by sophisticated and sometimes immoral consultants. Fact-checking lies has had to become an industry, but it can鈥檛 possibly keep up. What鈥檚 needed is more fact-checking, which means more money and more staff, and for Americans to demand that the lying stop.
Over the years, Adair and his revolving teams of students have created a methodology and a 鈥淭ruth-O-Meter鈥 for assessing the accuracy of a given statement. Rankings from 鈥渢rue鈥 to 鈥渇alse鈥 to 鈥減ants on fire!鈥 are assigned based on findings, which are explained and sourced on the website.
Adair is quick to note that political lying began long before Trump. President Richard Nixon lied about the Watergate burglary out of self-preservation. President Bill Clinton lied about 鈥渟ex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky,鈥 because he was in very hot water with everyone (except his feminist supporters, who remained curiously silent).
In a sense, Trump is the inevitable benefactor of a culture of lies that has become normalized through passive acceptance of lying as the nature of politics. Thanks to the fire hose of 24/7 news, there鈥檚 hardly time to clean up one mess before a hundred more have been dumped on the living room floor by people paid to create and disseminate falsehoods.
Adair explains in his new book, 鈥淏eyond the Big Lie,鈥 that politicians every day try to score points with key constituencies: voters, party leaders, influencers and media figures. 鈥淎 decision to lie is a simple math equation: I am likely to score enough points with this lie that it will outweigh any consequences it might have from voters/donors/the media.鈥
Through numerous interviews with political pundits, pollsters, politicians and public figures, Adair has learned that lies are mostly manufactured for a candidate鈥檚 base, whose members are willing to accept anything that affirms what they already believe. For the Republican base, which readily embraced Trump鈥檚 earlier birther lie that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, it takes little to persuade them that Harris would steal money to support illegal migrants.
In what is certain to ignite passions on the right, Adair states that Republicans lie more than Democrats do, according to a statistical analysis detailed in the book. He spends several pages explaining how 鈥渇acts鈥 are selected for scrutiny, but it basically comes down to whether something just doesn鈥檛 sound right. For example: Does it sound right that Harris 鈥渟tole鈥 FEMA money to house illegal migrants rather than help hurricane victims?
Actually, no -- which is why PolitiFact gave Trump a 鈥減ants on fire!鈥 rating for telling this easily disprovable lie.
Voters concerned about truth and the consequences of lying might want to check with PolitiFact at least as often as they check the polls. They鈥檒l learn that Trump, contrary to what he recently told Hugh Hewitt, has never been to Gaza. And that Harris鈥 claim that unemployment is at a historic low for all groups of people was rated only 鈥渉alf true.鈥 It鈥檚 good to know the truth, even if you don鈥檛 like it.
Parker writes for The Washington Post.
A family owned grocery store in a small town closes its door. A once-thriving Main Street is now a shell of its former self. A community that once flourished sees its population dwindle.
Those stories are all too familiar for people across greater Nebraska.
Yet a recent survey of young people across the state painted a different kind of story, one that bodes well for rural communities that have faced those realities over the past couple of decades.
More than half of the over 4,000 students at 43 different rural schools who answered the Nebraska Youth Survey indicated they are somewhat or extremely likely to live in the area they currently live in when they are adults, the Journal Star's Jenna Ebbers reported. A majority of students surveyed said their ideal community size is small like their hometowns. And students also reported not feeling a negative stigma around returning to or staying in their small towns after high school.
The survey, produced by the Nebraska Community Foundation and the Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, also showed that many students listed things like safety, good schools and close proximity to family as priorities when deciding where to live.
This should be welcome news for rural Nebraska, which desperately needs to retain young people and reverse the brain drain plaguing the state at large and causing small, rural towns to shrink.
It should also be a call to action to lawmakers, chambers of commerce and others to do more to incentivize young people to become a part of their communities after high school and college.
For that is one challenge the survey, which was administered over the past five years, clearly illustrated: While most students feel connected to their small communities, an overwhelming number of respondents said they don't feel like they play an actual role in said community. Opportunities, like internships and job shadowing, for example, may be lacking in small towns.
Part of the solution is getting the information out. Exposing students to different careers available in rural areas of the state could lead more young people to feeling like they play an integral role.
The survey's findings should also stimulate efforts to implement programs to encourage these young people already eager to stay to plant their roots. Economic development initiatives to spur Main Street small business and efforts to expand broadband can be the catalyst for growth.
And in addition to not only making young people who are raised in those communities feel like they are a part of the whole, those who are new to the community 鈥 or the state or country 鈥 should also be welcomed.聽
A survey is one thing. It's going to take investing in our small towns to ensure these optimistic numbers indeed portend a brighter future 鈥 and a better story 鈥 for greater Nebraska.