WHEN ACTING RACIST IS A POLITICAL PLOY...:

Billionaire's scion and Nebraska governor Pete Ricketts set a high watermark for controversy during his first six years in office. There was his "crazy" refusal to lock down the state despite a surge of COVID-19 cases, the unearthed racist messages from his former campaign field director, and his maskless gabfest at a sports bar on election night 2020. (The restaurant worker who filmed the governor was fired.)

Yet in recent months the nuttiness quotient has somehow metastasized. Over the summer, the governor fueled a far-right conspiracy that claimed that some of President Biden's conservation efforts were in fact a private land grab.

Then Ricketts dived head first into the culture wars, assailing critical race theory, the playing of the "Black national anthem" at a University of Nebraska basketball game, and other anti-racism efforts at the college.

"That document is basically saying the University of Nebraska is systematically racist. I don't believe it," Ricketts said of the anti-racism proposals on Nov. 22.

On Wednesday the Omaha NAACP published a statement imploring the governor to back off.

Ricketts' provocations are likely calculated, local politicos say.

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