As Seen in the Omaha World-Herald: The Rules of the Road / A Pause and an Apology
Every Iowan and Nebraskan who ever
held a driver’s license learned the same
bargain at sixteen. You stop at the red
light even when the road is empty. You
yield when the sign says yield. You pull
over when the trooper’s lights come on,
and if you think the ticket is wrong, you
take it to the judge, and then you do what
the judge says. Nobody in either state
has ever been issued a license stamped
rules optional.
On November 3, voters will decide whether
that bargain still applies to the man in
the White House. Strip away the ads and
the rally music, and this election comes
down to one question: does the President
of the United States have to follow the
rules of the road? Donald J. Trump and
the MAGA movement have answered it
with their conduct. The answer is no.
THE COURTS ARE NOT
HIS EMPLOYEES
An Associated Press review found federal
judges had determined that this
administration ignored court orders at
least 31 times. In Minnesota, Judge Patrick
Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee,
catalogued 96 violations of court
orders by ICE in his district in January
Gallagher, appointed by Trump himself,
held the administration in contempt for
the second time in the same case, after a
19-year-old asylum seeker was deported
to El Salvador in spite of three separate
cuit heard arguments over whether officials
criminally defied an order to turn
deportation flights around.
The owner of a company can overrule a
store manager. A president cannot overrule
a federal judge. In my opinion, Donald
Trump lives in a delusional world in which
the judiciary is a subsidiary he holds a majority
stake in, and an unfavorable ruling
is a memo from a junior employee that he
may drop in the wastebasket.
“A president who will not
stop at the red light will
not stop anywhere.”
CONGRESS HOLDS
THE PURSE, NOT HIM
Article I of the Constitution gives Congress
the power of the purse. It does not
Government Accountability Office, Congress’s
own nonpartisan watchdog, ruled
that his attempt to cancel $810 million
in health, education and other funding,
passed by Congress and signed into law,
is illegal. The maneuver, GAO wrote,
“subverts both the constitutional process
for enacting federal law and Congress’s
constitutional power of the purse.”
The White House budget director’s response
was to call GAO “hyper partisan.”
But it was Maine Republican Susan
Collins, chair of Senate Appropriations,
who called it an “unlawful cancellation
of appropriations that were approved on
a bipartisan basis.” When a Republican
chair says it, it is not partisanship. It is
arithmetic.
THE CONSTITUTION IS
NOT A SUGGESTION
In February the Supreme Court, 6–3, in
an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts,
held that the President never had legal
authority to impose his sweeping emergency
tariffs. The same day, he reached
for a different statute and announced
a new global tariff on every country on
earth, raising it to 15% within a day.
Roughly $166 billion taken unlawfully
from American importers now has to
be pried back through the courts, while
trade lawyers describe the administration
slow-walking the refunds as interest
runs up on your dime.
A DEAL IS A DEAL,
UNLESS HE SIGNED IT
Trump signed the U.S.–Mexico–Canada
Agreement in 2020 and called it the best
trade deal ever made. Then he slapped
tariffs on Canada anyway and told our
neighbor, which buried 158 soldiers from
the war in Afghanistan that followed 9/11,
that it ought to become the 51st state.
In January he said he was open to military
force to take Greenland from Denmark, a
NATO ally that lost 43 soldiers fighting
beside Americans in Afghanistan. When
Denmark’s friends stood with it, he hit
Denmark, France, Britain, Germany and
The Greenland pact signed September
22 was sold as “permanent control.”
Analysts at the hawkish Foundation for
Defense of Democracies concluded it
The Rules of the Road
“Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.” — Mark Twain
This election is a referendum on the rule of law. A president who treats the courts and Congress
as subsidiaries of his own company has not even delivered what he promised, and the
Republicans who once vowed to stand up to Washington are standing on his stage.
Veritas Pro Populo
HONEST POLITICS
Brent Lambi
Now on X: @_HonestPolitics | x.com/_HonestPolitics
When I filed this case, I expected a
straightforward process involving discovery
and documents. If the record
supported it, I also expected the true
wrongdoer to be named as a third party
defendant.
That is not what has happened. It is my
opinion that discovery in this matter is
being shaped by people whose names do
not appear in the case caption. I cannot
prove that today, and I will not tell readers
otherwise. I can only tell you what I
believe and why I am acting on it.
I am therefore pausing my lawsuit.
I want to be plain about Berkshire Hathaway.
My view is that the company and
its agents may themselves have been
used by someone else who gave them a
version of events and left them to act on
it.
If I am right, Berkshire is not the author
of this defamation but a vehicle for it. To
the extent that my filings suggested otherwise,
my apology is sincere.
My hope is that Berkshire Hathaway or
its agents will come forward or tell others
what I suspect they may already know:
the origin of this matter is federal.
I remain of the view that my dispute
with the federal government is ongoing
and that the government’s objective is
to silence and discredit me.
Free speech has cost me a great deal. In
this political climate, it is plainly not free.
Brent Lambi: The opinions expressed
above are solely those of the author.
A Pause and an Apology
An update on the Berkshire Hathaway defamation matter
and why I am putting my own case on hold for now.
“Berkshire is not the author of this defamation but a vehicle for it.”
changes less than it seems, since a 1951
treaty already gave America broad access,
and that Trump “severely damaged
trust among America’s European allies
and created strains in the NATO alliance
to the delight of the Kremlin.” Allies are
not rivals to be shaken down. They are
the reason we win.
EVEN BY HIS OWN
SCORECARD, HE FAILED
If contempt for the courts, Congress,
the Constitution and our allies were not
enough to revolt any decent American,
consider this: the administration has also
failed to deliver what it promised you.
THE LEDGER OF BROKEN PROMISES
Lower prices on “day one.”
Tariffs would make
farmers rich.
Farm aid would
make you whole.
Ethanol’s champion.
End Ukraine’s war
“in 24 hours.”
Something “much better”
than Obamacare.
Release the Epstein files.
Drain the swamp.
PROMISED DELIVERED
Inflation 3.4% in August after a 4.2% April peak. USDA
sees beef up nearly 10% this year.
Record farm debt of $624.7 billion and record $33 billion
in interest. Chapter 12 filings up 220% in Iowa, 29%
in Nebraska in 2025.
A $12 billion bridge against $50 billion-plus in losses
(Farm Bureau). Financially vulnerable Iowa farms:
7.7% to 19%.
Still no permanent nationwide year-round E15.
The war grinds on; he pressures Zelensky, not Putin.
“Concepts of a plan.” Enhanced ACA credits lapsed;
premiums rose.
Months of resistance until his own party forced a vote.
A $400 million Qatari jet; $1.2–1.4 billion in family
crypto income in 2025.
THE REPUBLICANS
WHO KNEW BETTER
That is what makes this sad. Iowa and
Nebraska have sent Republicans to
Washington who told us they would
stand up to it. Don Bacon, a retired Air
Force brigadier general, broke publicly
with this President over Ukraine, tariffs
and Pete Hegseth, and he is leaving Congress.
Mariannette Miller-Meeks and
Zach Nunn campaigned as independent
voices for Iowa, then stood on the stage
in Clive praising the administration’s policies
before Trump spoke. Pete Ricketts
built his name as a free-trade governor
who led missions abroad to sell Nebraska
beef and grain; he now stands with the
President whose trade war has cost those
same producers dearly.
when Congress’s own watchdog said the
President broke the law to take money
Congress appropriated? Where were
they when a Trump-appointed judge
found contempt a second time? Silence
in the face of lawlessness is not neutrality.
It is a vote.
THE VISIT WILL NOT SAVE THEM
promised to come to Iowa: “We have to
get you all elected.” He added, “I think
I’m more popular now than I was then.”
Iowans disagree. A Marist poll taken
September 17–20 found Democrat Josh
Turek leading Ashley Hinson 50% to 42%
among registered voters for the open
Senate seat, Democrat Rob Sand ahead
for governor, and, most telling, 43% calling
their congressional vote mostly a vote
against Trump, against just 22% for him.
In Nebraska, which has not elected a
Democrat to the Senate since 2006, independent
Dan Osborn led Ricketts
46% to 42% in a SurveyUSA poll, while a
Wedgewood poll had Ricketts up 52% to
48%, a dead heat either way. In Omaha’s
Second District, Democrat Denise Powell
led Republican Brinker Harding 46% to
42% in a Democratic-sponsored survey.
In my opinion, every rally is a reminder
of whom these candidates answer to, and
it is not you.
THE BALLOT QUESTION
To every Republican on the ballot in
Iowa and Nebraska, two questions, on
the record: If the President defies a federal
court order, will you vote to hold
him accountable, yes or no? And: Is
Congress’s power of the purse yours to
defend, or his to ignore?
This is not about party. I am a lifelong Independent.
Had a Democratic president
ignored 31 court orders and spent money
Congress never approved, I would write
every word of this again. But this cycle, a
vote for any Republican who will not answer
those questions is a vote to let him
keep driving with no rules at all. A president
who will not stop at the red light will
not stop anywhere.
FOLLOW THE RULES
OF THE ROAD.
ON NOVEMBER 3,
TAKE AWAY THE KEYS.
Sources: Associated Press court-order review (May 2026); Just
Security on Schiltz order (Feb. 2026); Axios on Judge Gallagher
contempt (Sept. 25, 2026); ACLU on D.C. Circuit en banc
hearing (Sept. 29, 2026); GAO opinion via Roll Call, AP, Deseret
News, NBC (Sept. 26–29, 2026); Learning Resources v. Trump
(Feb. 20, 2026), WilmerHale, BDO; Wikipedia and House of
Commons Library on the Greenland crisis; FDD (Sept. 29,
2026); BLS CPI August 2026; USDA ERS Food Price Outlook;
American Farm Bureau; Iowa Farm Bureau/ISU/Iowa Bankers
Assn. 2026 Outlook; PBS/AP and Iowa Capital Dispatch
(Sept. 28, 2026; Jan. 27, 2026); Marist Poll (Sept. 17–20, 2026);
Political Wire (SurveyUSA, Wedgewood); Pollsmax; Legis1 and
Ballotpedia on NE-2.