OPINION: Politicians’ cloudy vision the result of more than the summer heat

Perhaps it’s the dog days’ heat. Or maybe some other atmospheric phenomenon. It’s possible, too, that we’re simply tired of the unremitting hoohah and have checked out politically. Whatever the culprit, real or imagined, our vision is clouded, our focus blurred and our eyes have strayed from the prize. Assuming, of course, we can agree on what the prize actually is. Big assumption.

To wit: Nebraskans now pony up about four bucks a gallon for gas, need a small loan for a trip to the grocery store and wonder when — or if — the local economy will rebound from war, drought and tariffs. But instead of solutions, we’ve recently been subjected to a triumvirate of trivial pursuits: Continuing drama over Nebraska’s November ballot; our U.S. Senator touting a Constitutional rewrite; and, for apparently no reason aside from wanting to shout and murmur, a return to the inglorious and ignominious days of the COVID pandemic.

William Forbes, a former Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate who rounded up 11% of the primary vote in May, is asking the courts to compel the state Democratic party to put a candidate on the November ballot. Democratic primary winner Cindy Burbank has withdrawn her name from the ballot, leaving non-partisan candidate Dan Osborn as what many Democrats see as the best chance to defeat incumbent, Pete Ricketts.

To Forbes’ dubious suit, we have to add earlier accusations that both Forbes and Burbank were “plants,” shills to muck up the primary process for someone’s advantage. Who that actually was remains a mystery. Osborn and Ricketts maintain they had nothing to do with any ballot balminess.

Stay tuned as the election cycle turns … constantly.

Despite a recent Supreme Court decision which reaffirmed the first sentence of the 14th Amendment — “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” — the aforementioned Ricketts told reporters during a conference call that Congress should act to change what we’ve come to know as birthright citizenship.

He warned that “bad actors” and “adversaries” are exploiting the law by arriving in America to give birth and then returning home although he offered no real numbers to underscore the abuse. He said the current status of birthright citizenship is not what “our founders intended, or what the writers of the 14th Amendment intended when they wrote this.”

We’ll not quibble with the whole Founders and timing issue — the 14th Amendment was written nearly 80 years after the Constitution was ratified and affirmed by the Supreme Court 22 years after that. We will cruise over to Article V of the Constitution where we find a fairly straightforward process in place to undo a constitutional amendment. No rewrites are allowed, so it would require an entirely new amendment, which would need two-thirds of both houses of Congress to ratify the change followed by three-quarters of the states to do the same.

That’s a heavy political lift, not to mention just how the logistics of determining citizenship would then work. Gestational pre-approval? Delivery room affidavits? Maternity ward hearings?

Finally, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security last week hauled Dr. Anthony Fauci into a hearing where, citing his 5th Amendment privilege, he refused to answer their questions about the origins of COVID and entries from his personal diary plucked from government computers. Rather than attend to preparations for another potential pandemic, GOP committee members apparently thought it useful to castigate Fauci over the details of the last one.

The proceedings became heated, too, when a questioner’s F-bomb made a rare senatorial public appearance. For his part Fauci said committee chairman, Sen. Rand Paul, had an “unhinged obsession” to belittle and incarcerate him. A fevered few, who blamed Fauci for mask mandates and school shutdowns, have called for the doctor to be executed. Ironically, many who consider Fauci the devil incarnate are now just fine with masks.

Where Congress goes with Fauci remains to be seen although it does so as an antipathy for scientific expertise continues to play itself out among the current administration and many of its supporters. What is clear is that while over a million Americans died from COVID, according to the National Library of Medicine, statewide mask mandates saved 87,000 lives by December 2020. A JAMA research study estimated another  271,000 and 447,000 lives were saved over two years primarily by masks and vaccines.

Here’s what wasn’t clear at the hearing: Any real evidence that Fauci committed a crime.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents in a recent CNN poll said the administration is not paying enough attention to the nation’s most pressing problems. No word on whether any of them thought it was the heat.