Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Sorted by date Results 101 - 125 of 1718
I find it so very interesting to see the frequent editorials, news articles, and letters to the editor addressing the failed "tax system" Nebraska has had for many years. Does anyone stop to think before they vote? The Republicans have had control of the State of Nebraska including the Governor and the Legislature for 26 years and it has certainly gotten worse throughout those 26 years. Know who you are voting for, perhaps it is past time to try someone else, you do have choices. Separation of Powers would certainly be a benefit, instead of...
Editor: Recent considerations about using Placer.ai technologies in our community have been a focus lately and while having access to "more" information seems a logical path to growth, this is not always the case, especially with technologies we, as a community, have not fully explored and vetted. In any case, our collective privacy and security is not something we should take lightly. We should not cut corners for either the sake of data and/or profit, especially when there has not been enough due diligence in exploring "new" technologies. A...
On May 30, 2024, a jury in a New York courtroom read the verdict, convicting the former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump 's lawyers will appeal the case and the decision will likely get overturned by a higher court. This decision should get overturned because it represents one of the biggest travesties of justice ever to come out of an American courtroom. I call this a travesty of justice because nobody, not even the...
Last time in these pages I discussed the Supreme Court's decision in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, out of Topeka, Kansas. It attempted to rollback the premise that, if schools were "equal" in quality, then they may remain "separated" between blacks and whites. Chief Justice Earl Warren disagreed. On May 31, 1955, Earl Warren insisted that Southern states must initiate desegregation plans in their schools "with all deliberate speed." "Massive resistance" across the Southern states erupted. School boards closed their schools, abolish...
"See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time for the days are evil. Therefore, understand what the will of the Lord is and be filled with His Spirit." Ephesians 5:15-18. Studying business at Colorado State University, it was embedded in me to make a list of six things to do each day, prioritize and stick to the list. Then, I found these verses. Holy Spirit became my logistics expert! There is a flow to life. Holy Spirit flows through you every day to design...
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: While I am all for new businesses opening in town, is no consideration made of the impact made on residents? I am talking about the new brewery that just opened up, Boss City. It has made driving south headed to any direction at the corner not only inconvenient but dangerous. People park their huge pickups sticking out into traffic if you're heading south so that you have to practically pull into oncoming traffic just to get around them. I have almost been hit several times at that stop sign because I have to pull out in...
Operation Tidal Wave Every year when homeowners receive their new property valuations in the mail, I receive a chorus of emails and phone calls from both urban and rural residents complaining about their higher property valuations. I hear a refrain of this chorus after residents receive their subsequently higher property tax statements. Property owners appear to direct their complaints mostly at their local officials, like county commissioners or city council members. Actually, our state legislature determines by statute how local taxing author...
Jesus once said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends," John 15:13. I am not trying to get religious, but this is the expected principle to live by when you serve as a chaplain in the military. Of course, that principle is much easier said than done. Nevertheless, four Army chaplains once displayed this kind of love and courage during the days of WWII, so today I would like to recall their story. The SS Dorchester had been requisitioned as a troop...
In 2023 and 2024 Governor Pillen and the Legislature focused an abundance of energy on the educational needs of Nebraska's PreK-12 students. They increased public school funding by 37%, created a $1 billion dollar future education fund, and finally joined the 48 other states in offering all children the opportunity to attend the school that best fits their needs. But some do not like even the tiniest percentage of educational funding going to schools that the union does not control. Even though funding for the new school choice program is only...
Continuing from the first Constitutional Argument article let us take a look at a few more amendments that most Americans have little or no knowledge of. I dare say that most of our nation’s public schools do little if any teaching about the Constitution of the United States. As a result we are witnessing more and more trespassing of our rights and freedoms by various levels of government and governmental agencies. So, picking up from where I left off here are a few more constitutional arguments...
"Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, you, who seek the Lord. Look to the Rock from which you were hewn, look to Abraham and Sarah." Isaiah 51:1,2 One little boy asked his father, "Where did I come from?" The father, not wanting to get into a 'birds and bees' talk with his young son, answered, "Go ask your mother." When the 5-year-old approached his mother, she asked, "Why do you ask?" He replied, "Abigail is from Boston, and I've never been there!" Each of us have asked, "How did...
One of the questions we often receive about the EPIC Option Consumption Tax concerns the two ballot initiatives. Many folks ask us, "How is the petition drive doing?" Today I am prepared to give an update and I have some very good news to report. The EPIC Option Consumption Tax currently has two petition drives running concurrently to put two separate ballot initiatives on the ballot for the voters to decide on November 5. The first ballot initiative would eliminate all taxes other than...
It's bad enough that President Joe Biden is playing politics with the war in Gaza, but even worse -- at least for his purposes -- that he is doing it so poorly. Biden may imagine that he is maneuvering with incredible skill -- subtly balancing geopolitics, alliance management and domestic imperatives --when he is really upsetting all sides in the course of further undermining his already-rickety presidency. This is less Otto von Bismarck than Jimmy Carter minus the Camp David Accords. A couple...
In Topeka, Kansas, on February 20, 1943, a black girl named Linda Brown was born. When still a child in the early 1950's, her father, Oliver Brown, was required to drive Linda to an all-black school five miles across Topeka, when an all-white school, the Sumner School, was a few blocks distant from Oliver's home. Oliver was angry. An assistant pastor at St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church, he joined the NAACP and other plaintiffs to file a lawsuit against Topeka's Board of Education,...
"Lord, what would You have me to do?" Acts 9. This is not the first time Saul of Tarsus had asked questions of Jesus of Nazareth. I believe Saul to be the Apostle Paul, the rich young ruler of Mark 9. (The most complete picture of the young ruler, narrated by Peter to John Mark, author of the book. Peter may have seen himself reflected in this historic encounter). There are two kinds of people; believers and unbelievers, givers and takers. Both Peter and Saul, cum Paul, would face the reality...
On Friday May 3, 2024 citizens concerned about Nebraska’s overly burdensome tax system packed the Warner Chamber at the Nebraska State Capitol Building in Lincoln to hear an honest debate and exchange of ideas about the EPIC Option Consumption Tax. While we invited numerous representatives from those organizations who openly oppose the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, such as the Open Sky Institute, the State Chamber of Commerce, the League of Municipalities, the Nebraska Farm Bureau, and No New T...
President Joe Biden has suffered a collapse in his standing generally, but, fundamentally, it's because so few people think he's doing a good job that he's in such a perilous state. Other than that, it's going great. It's hard to exaggerate how abysmal Biden's polling has been lately. No incumbent president should ever want to be near 43% in a head-to-head ballot test. Yet here is Joe Biden at 43% in the latest CNN poll, 43% in the latest Morning Consult poll, 43% in the latest Economist/YouGov...
Recently our country has seen activities by various levels of government, from states to our national government that, at the very least, could be assessed as unconstitutional. Unfortunately many of our educational systems around the nation have failed to teach our young for some time about the Constitution of the United States. There are few today who have any knowledge about the original document, much less about the Amendments that have been made to it. And during the recent pandemic several...
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7 The understood premise of this passage from Jesus' sermon on the Mount of Olives is: 'it' must be according to God's Word. Father is eager to grant the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4). The one condition is to 'delight oneself in the Lord'. Also, we cannot err in thinking He will bless whatever plan we come up with. This did not work for Adam or countless kings. "My Way" often rules. Hist...
One of the most important bills that I ever introduced in my career as a Nebraska State Senator was my destroyed property bill, originally LB 482. The contents of that bill were later amended into LB 512 and passed as a Christmas Tree bill back in 2019. The bill enables landowners with destroyed or damaged properties to have their valuations readjusted for property tax purposes, provided that the damage exceeds 20 percent of the property’s value during the current assessment year and the p...
When the Supreme Court said it would hear Donald Trump's immunity claim in the Jan. 6 case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, the former president's enemies erupted in anger. It was delay for delay's sake. It was a rank political favor for an ally. It was utterly gratuitous in legal terms, since it's a slam dunk that a former president doesn't enjoy immunity for acts during his time in office. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow accused the Court of "doing this as a dilatory tactic to help your political...
"A Greater than Elijah (Yeshua HaMashiek) shall come, and He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers. Then you shall discern (see) the righteous, one who serves God." Malichi 3:18; 4:6 One of the problems society suffers, today, is the number of fatherless (Daddyless) children. When fathers are missing, so are mothers, as Mom works overtime just to bring her children food, clothing and shelter, while she herself, is famished spiritually...
April 18th was the last day of the 108th Legislature and marked the end of my days as a legislator, even though my term won't officially expire until January 5 of next year. For those who may be wondering about my future in politics, I have no plans to return to the Unicameral Legislature, except for a possible special session later this year; however, it has been a pleasure to represent the good people of Legislative District 47 for the past eight years. I never anticipated the depth of the...
Columbia University is once again the center of the radical universe. More than 50 years after anti-Vietnam War demonstrators roiled the Columbia campus in 1968, anti-Israel agitators are disrupting the school's operations, and inspiring similar actions at other universities around the country. In their open support for a terror group, today's demonstrators are more virulent than their 1960s forebears, but they are still the ideological heirs of the New Left -- grandchildren in the spirit of the...
Title IX was passed by Congress more than 50 years ago to level the playing field for girls and women. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in sports and education programs that receive federal funding. Recently, Joe Biden's Department of Education (DOE) released new Title IX rules that radically rewrite the law. The rewrite threatens the progress and safety of American girls and women in education and athletics. I'm standing with women across Nebraska against these radical new policies. The...
