Well, last week was a pretty bananas week for Nebraska politics. Eight women (eight!) made serious and disturbing allegations of sexual assault against gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster. The allegations include claims of groping (both outside of and under clothing) and forcible kissing.

I’m not a human lie detector. I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of what happened. The purpose of this essay is to respond to Herbster’s reaction to the allegations—specifically, that “Governor Ricketts and Him Pillen’s campaign team have peddled this made-up story from one news outlet to another without any success…The fake-news story is based upon shadowy, unnamed sources and one person who was appointed by Governor Ricketts…it’s libelous fake news.”

Herbster’s claim that this is a political conspiracy requires us to think about what that would mean for these eight women. Because if anything is clear from my time as a prosecutor, defense attorney, and victims’ counsel, it’s that accusations of sexual assault can be absolutely brutal—for the accuser.

No need to beat around the bush with the title.

That’s what this is about.

You might as well know where I’m heading.

I’ve never really talked about it with strangers, let alone put it on the internet. But I’ve been thinking a lot about mental health while writing Decent Discourse and today I listened to a professional responsibility presentation about depression in the legal profession. So it’s on my mind right now, and I figured talking about it might, just maybe, be an encouragement to someone out there who is struggling…

There’s a memorial wall on the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) compound at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The wall honors those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom while assigned to the command—each represented by a single star. It’s a beautiful memorial, humbling and solemn.

The first eight stars on the memorial wall represent the fallen members of Operation Eagle Claw, the failed 1980 attempt to rescue hostages at the US Embassy in Iran. The mission was exceedingly complex, involving every branch of the military, eight C-130s, and six RH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters that would rendez-vous at a remote desert landing site in Iran code-named Desert One. Weather and mechanical failures prevented the full assault force from making it to Desert One, and the mission commander decided to abort the mission.

But under cover of darkness and with sand billowing as the force prepared to depart, one of the helicopters crashed into a C-130 carrying extra fuel, igniting a fire that killed five Airmen and three Marines. When the remaining assault arrived back to base, two cases of beer awaited them along with a note from their British hosts:

To you all

From us all

For having the guts to try

Last week I saw this sign in front of a local church. It was, in the King James Version of the phrase, super weak-sauce.

St. Mary’s has since removed the sign and replaced it with a simple message: “Lo Siento (Sorry).” But this half-apology falls well short, with church officials first declining to comment at all on the sign and later offering the lame excuse that it was put up by a church member “without our knowledge.”

May I present to you three areas of beef I have with this sign…

This week I saw a tweet from an author, pastor, and activist with a following of nearly 400,000 people.

Spoiler alert: I hated it.

A former friend who is full-on MAGA wrote me and said “Our friendship is worth more than politics.”

I disagree.

He’s now against vaccines, voting rights, immigrants, LGBTQs.

I think all those people he is hurting are worth more than our friendship.

Here’s why I think we need friendships more than ever, especially friendships with people who have different experiences and viewpoints than our own.

Well, it happened. Last night Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

There are enough takes on this already to completely break the internet, so I’ll keep mine brief. After all, I’ve spilled enough digital ink on Ukraine already: in the Omaha World-Herald last month and on this blog in November.

But here are just a few additional thoughts on horror and hope from the first day of this expanded conflict.

I had a conversation with a friend this week about calls for “accountability” following civilian casualties during recent US military operations:

• “NGO Letter to US Secretary of Defense Demands Accountability and Reform…”

• “The Defense Department Inspector General will examine whether elite US commando forces are doing enough to comply with the laws of armed conflict and hold violators accountable”

• “No US troops behind a drone strike that killed Afghan civilians will be punished”

Headlines like this understandably upset and anger folks: the US military kills innocent civilians, either on purpose or on accident, it’s investigated, and nothing happens. Time after time. How is that okay?

Today I’ll try to tackle the weighty goal of explaining why many actions in combat that result in civilian casualties are—well, not okay, but—lawful, and why it’s actually proper that those responsible typically aren’t punished.