We at Seeing Red were hardly through our morning coffee before we learned of an event being hosted tomorrow at Creighton University and billed as the “Take Back Nebraska Summit ’22.” Our interest was piqued immediately because there was something about a cocktail reception.
Unfortunately, cocktails will not be strong enough to recover from the parade of fascist, anti-semitic, anti-LGBTQ+ “freedom lovers” marching through. The event is being sponsored by The Nebraska Freedom Coalition — a group whose dog-whistle choir of “patriots” always provides a convenient who’s who of local right-wing maniacs.
But what really dampened our enthusiasm was the list of keynote speakers:
Jack Posobiec
Posobiec is a figure well known to both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League as a crazed antisemite with a distressing fondness for white nationalism, neo-Nazism, and conspiracy theories that invariably involve Jews.
Posobiec is, needless to say, a devoted fan of the absurd Pizzagate conspiracy, and actually hired two other neo-Nazis to create a fatuously conspiratorial documentary about the murder of Omaha native Seth Rich (one of these neo-Nazis was later arrested by the FBI on gun charges after saying that the Jewish victims of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre “deserved exactly what happened to them and so much worse”).
But in case anyone has lingering doubts about the levels to which Posobiec’s deranged heartlessness aspires, we can enter into evidence the selfie he took outside the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial in Poland:
Raheem Kassam
Right-wing nutters especially like Kassam, because he is a former Muslim who likes to rail against Muslims. And women. And gay people. In fact, he’s so committed to toxic bigotry that the Australian Labor Party actively tried to get him banned from entering the country.
But as we all know, it’s far easier to get into Creighton these days than Australia, especially if you aren’t a conspiracy theorist. Interestingly, mainstream authors and former Nebraska politicians have been loudly disinvited to speak and professors are not allowed to call white-supremacy “white supremacy.” Yet, Creighton has a long history of hosting events in which people espouse views that can only be squared with Catholicism through near-acrobatic contortions of its own doctrines.
That’s what our staff theologian says, anyway. The rest of us are actually wondering whether Creighton’s particular interpretation of Catholicism somehow manages to embrace anti-semitism, white supremacy, and any number of other distasteful creeds. As a private religious institution, they will of course be the first to tell you that they are under no obligation to promote views contrary to their own. But one wonders if the necessary corollary to that is being enacted here: They are hosting speakers whose views are in accordance with their own.
Seeing Red Nebraska and some of our readers have contacted multiple departments within Creighton University, including Public Relations, Student Life, and President Hendrickson about this appearance and asking for comment. We have not, thus far, received comment from anyone other than from the “Director, Intellectual Resource Management,” Stuart Martens who encouraged us to contact Student Life since this is sponsored by a “student organization.” Of course, this student organization is not the Nebraska Freedom Coalition, but is none other than TPUSA, of which our reporting is too extensive to link here.
As we look more into this event we are starting to see why nobody at Creighton wants to talk to us about it. Who else will be there you ask?
Chris Baker
Emceeing this event is Chris Baker, who was fired from his job as a radio “personality” for being too racist for one of the most racist radio stations in Nebraska. Now he works for a sex pest at Senator Suzanne Geist’s propaganda outlet Nebraska Sunrise News.
Senators Brewer, Hansen, and Halloran
Senator Halloran is well known to everyone as a yes-man to a variety of authoritarians, but Senator Ben Hansen is relatively new to the scene. He is a rising star in the NEGOP who is flying under everyone’s radar. He is well-loved in the Protect Nebraska Children group and is making no secret of who he is by speaking at this event. We hope his constituents will hold him accountable.
Needless to say, we will not be attending this event, cocktail party or not. But to be honest, we don’t think Creighton should be holding it in the first place.
