Free Republic

Increase includes vice chancellor for diversity, other DEI positions The University of Nebraska at Lincoln added more than 350 new positions in the past decade – nearly all of them administrative – while student enrollment numbers remained steady... Among the new hires is a vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion. His salary for the current year is $267,585 .. During the 2022-23 school year, the most recent data available, the public university’s Lincoln campus employed 4,014 full-time administrators and support staff... In 2013-2014, IPEDS data shows UNL employed 3,720 administrators and support staff – meaning it added 294 administrative positions...

Two Republicans joined Democrats in blocking legislation that would have stopped transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports in K-12 schools in Nebraska. A bill that would stop student athletes from participating on sports teams for the opposite sex, as well as using locker rooms and bathrooms for the opposite sex, was blocked by a filibuster on Friday in Nebraska, according to a report by Nebraska Public Media. After four hours of debate, 31 state senators voted for the legislation (LB575), but the bill needed 33 votes in order to end the filibuster.

Nebraska State Sen. Mike McDonnell (R-5) announced he is fleeing the Democrat party to become a Republican, giving the GOP what U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) calls a “filibuster-proof majority” in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature. McDonnell’s party change bears major implications for local and national politics as the state is on the verge of moving to a winner-take-all electoral vote allocation system for presidential elections. The state currently has a split electoral vote awarding system that gives “two electoral votes to the state popular vote winner, and then one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each congressional district,” as...

After big changes to abortion laws both at the state and federal level, [black] women are concerned about the future. “As we get to this next cycle of elected officials and leaders, we absolutely want to hold folks accountable to ensuring that we can have bodily autonomy and power over our bodies,” said Ashlei Spivey, founder of I Be Black Girl. About 28 percent of [black] female voters surveyed by health policy firm KFF noted abortion as their top issue ahead of the presidential election. About 28 percent of Black female voters surveyed by health policy firm KFF noted abortion...

OMAHA — U.S. Rep. Don Bacon will face one Republican challenger in his party’s May primary instead of two after a candidate who filed to run against him changed his mind Friday. His lone GOP opponent will be Dan Frei of Omaha, a former tea party darling who lost narrowly in the 2014 primary to Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. Frei says he wants to join the Freedom Caucus if elected. Michael Connely had also filed to run against Bacon in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District. He switched races on Friday to run in the 1st District House race. Connely told the...

One of Trump’s most vocal critics seems to have had a change of heart. Rep. Bacon probably watched the Super Tuesday results come in feeling pretty uneasy, especially seeing President Trump dominate by taking 14 out of the 15 states. The only state he narrowly missed was Vermont, thanks to its open primary system. There, Haley’s Democratic supporters turned out in force for her, netting her a single, rather unimpressive delegate. Join the fight and contribute to our war chest Ditch the ads for $5 per month or $49 per year One of Trump’s most vocal critics seems to have...

@LeadingReport BREAKING: Nebraska senator has introduced a bill that could make Nebraska the first in the country to forbid out-of-state hedge funds and other corporate entities from buying up single-family properties.

Renewable energy is the alternative that Democrats and other environmental nuts want to replace reliable oil, gas and coal. But time and time again, people who rely on wind and solar power have had to learn the tough lesson that such alternatives are both undependable and susceptible to the same elements they are supposed to harness. Nowhere was that more true than in Nebraska, where a thunderstorm dumped baseball-sized hail on a solar farm on Friday at a speed of 150 mph — destroying the facility in just a few minutes. Cowboy State Daily reported a storm moved east out...

Electric vehicles that typically weigh more than gasoline-powered cars can easily crash through steel highway guardrails that are not designed to withstand the extra force, raising concerns about the nation’s roadside safety system, according to crash test data released Wednesday by the University of Nebraska. Electric vehicles typically weigh 20% to 50% more than gas-powered vehicles thanks to batteries that can weigh almost as much as a small gas-powered car. And they have lower centers of gravity. Because of these differences, guardrails can do little to stop electric vehicles from pushing through barriers typically made of steel. Last fall, engineers...

Amid a revolt against incumbents, Nebraska’s State Central Committee of the Republican Party has endorsed a GOP challenger to incumbent Sen. and former Gov. Pete Ricketts. The committee is backing former Air Force Lt. Col. John Glen Weaver, according to the Nebraska Examiner. In 2022, former President Donald Trump branded Ricketts a “RINO,” which means Republican in Name Only, according to KLKN-TV.

PAPILLION, Neb. (Nebraska Examiner) - Former Tea Party darling Dan Frei of Omaha filed late last week to challenge U.S. Rep. Don Bacon of Papillion in the 2024 GOP primary in the 2nd District. Frei had no immediate comment Saturday about filing. He told the Examiner in early January that he was seriously considering a bid against Bacon. Frei later courted partisans attending a Nebraska Republican Party fundraiser in Omaha involving Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, who has still not conceded her loss in Arizona’s 2022 governor’s race. Some leaders in the Nebraska GOP have said they prefer candidates...

Bill Gates Set Up 20 Shell Companies to Hide Purchase of $113 Million of Nebraska Farmland The limited liability companies, buried under layers of business names, overlapping employees and addresses in at least three states, form a network more tangled and opaque than the one created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is buying a giant amount of Nebraska ranch land.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday reversed former Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry's three felony convictions, agreeing with Fortenberry's argument that the trial should not have taken place in California. Fortenberry was convicted by a federal jury in Los Angeles in 2022 on one count of concealing conduit campaign contributions and two counts of lying to federal agents, all felonies. The charges stemmed from Fortenberry allegedly accepting an illegal campaign donation from billionaire Nigerian businessman Gilbert Chagoury at a 2016 fundraiser and then lying about the donation during later interviews with FBI agents. On Tuesday, a panel of three judges with...

After Ohio’s Issue 1 vote legalized abortion with no gestational limit, the pro-abortion lobby is planning to put similar referendums on the ballots of many other states. As of November 14, pro-abortion initiatives are guaranteed to be on the ballots of two deep-blue states: Maryland and New York. However, abortion is currently legal in both states until so-called “fetal viability” – which is usually defined as falling between 23 and 24 weeks of pregnancy. Loopholes allow killing babies in abortions up to birth in both states. In many other states, the prospect of putting abortion to a vote next year...

The Douglas County Health Department (DCHD) and its partners are responding to a confirmed case of active tuberculosis disease (TB) at Westview YMCA. DCHD is investigating more than 500 possible exposures that may have happened at the facility’s drop-in daycare and is working to identify individuals who had close contact with the patient. Those possible exposures would have happened from late spring into late October. The Douglas County Health Department is investigating the patient’s activities while they were contagious to learn of potential exposures, helping the patient isolate, and observing them complete their medication until they test negative for TB....

A man wanted on suspicion of child sexual assault who led authorities on a pursuit Tuesday has been released from the hospital and booked into jail, Omaha police said Friday. Refugio Arcos-Hernandez, 33, is charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child, flight to avoid arrest, weapon possession by a prohibited person, resisting arrest, obstruction, leaving the scene of a property damage accident, willful reckless driving and not having a driver’s license. According to Sarpy County and Omaha authorities, Arcos-Hernandez fled from a traffic stop Tuesday after he was spotted outside Gretna High School. The pursuit ended near 59th and...

Omaha police have arrested Dominic M. Henton of Papillion, Nebraska as a suspect in the Wednesday assault of Martha McSally, a former United States senator. Police used surveillance video and other investigative means to identify Henton, according to a news release. In video stills shared by police, Henton is seen following McSally over the Bob Kerry Pedestrian Bridge and then southbound on the trail at Tom Hanafan River's Edge Park in Council Bluffs.

A top executive from the company behind the voting machines that “flipped votes” in Pennsylvania on Tuesday has admitted that “someone from our team programmed the election.” The voting machine issued caused votes in an eastern Pennsylvania county to appear to be “flipped” on a ballot question, officials said Tuesday. Voters were asked to decide whether Pennsylvania Superior Court Judges Jack Panella and Victor Stabile should be retained for additional 10-year terms. The “yes” or “no” votes for each judge were switched on a summary displayed to voters before they cast their ballot, said Charles Dertinger, the Northampton County director...

OMAHA, Neb. — Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon has been very vocal about his opinions on the nominees for House Speaker, but he finally found a candidate that he would support. Advertisement The House Republicans picked a fourth nominee for speaker on Tuesday. The late-night decision comes after the third nominee dropped out before Congress could even take a full vote. On Tuesday, the house GOP conference whittled five names down to one. It's the person who came in second this morning Louisiana's Mike Johnson. The Republican is a lawyer who specializes in constitutional issues. Congressman Bacon told KETV NewsWatch 7...

Don’t be fooled; the GOP establishment hates its own voter base, especially those who support President Trump—who make up the vast majority of the party. While the establishment wing of the Grand Old Party has taken a severe beating, a few stragglers still exist and are sabotaging any chance we have of triumphing over the left-wing Marxists. The GOP has long been content to play the role of loyal opposition to the ruling Democrats. The notion that we have two distinct political parties in this country is a farce. Need proof? Just take a gander at the Democrat pushing for...