FIRST FRIDAY WRAP-UP…AND APRIL SPEAKER ANNOUNCEMENT
The reviews are in and the new home for our First Friday Happy Hour, Bahama Breeze, was a big hit Friday night!
The private room was “right.” The service was “right.” The food was “right.” The prices were “right.” The sound system was “right.” But most importantly, the crowd was “right.”
Among the luminaries: City Councilman Stavros Anthony, Nevada GOP chief Michael McDonald, former Clark County GOP chief Richard Scotti, gun rights activists Don Turnerand Randy Mackie, Clark GOP "Volunteers of the Year" Dan & Rita Hickey, political consultant Dave McGowan, Veterans in Politics boss Steve Sanson…and, of course, our VIP guest-of-honor, Las Vegas city council candidate Suzette LaGrange.
There’s nothing quite like getting together with fellow conservatives and meeting new ones over an adult beverage or two without bylaws or Robert’s Rules of Disorder. Does a soul good. Thanks to my co-host, KDWN’s Alan Stock, for finding this new home for our monthly event.
The next First Friday Happy Hour will be on Friday, April 5 (my 54th birthday!)…and joining us as our VIP guest-of-honor will be a true unsung American hero, Dr. Ben Chavis.
In case you missed him on John Stossel’s television program last Thursday (click here), Stossel, quoting our guest’s critics, accused Chavis of having “a really big ego” and of being “a megalomaniac, a monster and a curse.”
To which Dr. Chavis responded, with a wry smile on his face, “Oh, yeah, all of those.”
But he immediately followed that up with: “And I know how to educate kids!”
And boy, does he EVER.
Indeed, the charter school he founded is now ranked the BEST in Oakland, California. And that’s despite the fact that almost every single kid in the school is a minority coming from a home at or below the official poverty level in what can only be considered some of the worst neighborhoods in the country.
Oh, and he’s been able to do this by spending LESS money per student than the Oakland school district spends in the rest of their crappy schools.
How has Chavis succeeded where the “professional” education establishment has failed so miserably? You’ll be fascinated by the secrets to success as revealed in his book, Crazy Like a Fox: One Principal’s Triumph in the Inner City.
Available on Amazon.com, of course (click here). And yes, the good doctor has agreed to sign your books at First Friday next month.
In Crazy Like a Fox, Chavis “debunks the myth that poor, minority, inner-city schools have little chance at academic excellence” by “focusing on back-to-basics ideals – academics, attendance, and hard work.” His methods resulted in “remarkable enthusiasm” from the students and “astounding results.”
Indeed, Chavis transformed the American Indian Public Charter School from a “failing, run-down nuisance” to “one of the highest-performing public middle schools in the nation.”
If that makes Ben Chavis a monster and a curse…PLEASE, LORD, give us more monsters and curses and fewer pencil-necked education bureaucrats and greedy, incompetent teachers union boobs!
You don’t want to miss this one, folks. I know some of you will have to be in Carson City for the Nevada GOP Central Committee meeting that weekend…but for everyone else, pencil this into your calendar now!
ALLIES SHOCKED, FURIOUS OVER ROBERSON’S SNEAK ATTACK
Although Sen. “Moderate Mike” Roberson’s (R-PLAN) proposal this week to slam Nevada’s mining industry with a new $780 million tax hike is the mirror image of political financierMonte Miller’s own “Screw Mining” proposal, I’m told Miller is “furious” with Roberson and rushed to the state capital on Friday to give him a piece of his mind!
Apparently Roberson didn’t consult with his deep-pocketed benefactor beforehand, so a panicked Miller flew up to Carson City and demanded a crack-of-dawn private meeting with Republican legislators to try to drum up support for the proposal, which one angry caucus member described as a “peanut brittle turd.”
Worse for Miller, one of the mining industry’s most powerful advocates, Rep. Mark Amodei,unexpectedly showed up and sat through the meeting without saying a word. He didn’t have to. Just being in the room spoke volumes!
“When Monte saw Amodei, his face turned white as a ghost,” a meeting participant told me.
Miller’s pitch went over like the proverbial lead balloon, I’m also told. “About the only good thing about the Miller/Roberson proposal is that it’s pretty much united our caucus…against them!” said my source.
Making a bad situation worse for Miller, his own organization, the Keystone Group, issued a scorching public statement a few hours after his meeting declaring, in no uncertain terms, that it does not support Roberson’s new cloned proposal now any more than it supported Miller’s original “Screw Mining” proposal last spring.
As for the mining industry itself - which helped bankroll Roberson’s flop of an effort to win control of the State Senate last year - mining lobbyist Tim Crowley reportedly blasted Roberson in a separate private meeting last week, suggesting his folks should have backed the Democrat challenger over one of Roberson’s GOP candidates.
“Maybe we should’ve supported Sheila Leslie,” Crowley fumed. “At least she would have stabbed us in the front. You stabbed us in the back!”
Ah, how to win friends and influence people.
DRIVE-BY MUTHINGS
* From the Department of Stupid is as Stupid Does comes the announcement last week that in the midst of the ongoing economic recession, Nevada State Sen. Ben Kieckhefer has somehow found it appropriate to waste everyone’s time and money on a stupid bill to establish an OFFICIAL DOG for the state. Worse, the dog he chose is the Blue Weimaraner, a hound with no known connection to the Silver State whatsoever.
Kieckhefer says he introduced the ridiculous bill “as a favor for a 9-year-old boy in his district” as a “civics lesson.” But if “Blue Dog” Kieckhefer wanted to provide a useful civics lesson, he would have explained to the boy that wasting taxpayer dollars and legislators’ time on something this trivial and dumb, especially in troubled times like this simply isn’t a responsible thing to do.
* There’s a reason Fox News kicks its competitors’ butt on cable TV, and it’s not the network’s conservative politics. It’s the babes! See for yourself in this new music video titled, “The Girls on Fox News.” Click here
* So the TSA – which for the last ten years or so has been confiscating dangerous tubes of toothpaste and mouthwash from the carry-on bags of air travelers – now says it’s OK to bring onboard small knives. Only in government could something this stupid make sense.
* Bravo to Sen. Dean Heller for sticking to his guns and killing the nomination of anti-gun judicial nominee Elissa Cadish to the federal bench. Although Cadish recanted her earlier position on the Second Amendment and said she’d enforce the law, a tiger doesn’t change his spots and a leopard doesn’t change his stripes.
* Since the initial accusations that Assemblyman Steven Brooks threatened Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick have been recanted by the very colleagues he supposedly made them to, explain to me again why Mr. Brooks is being barred from serving his constituents in Carson City as he was elected to do? I mean, just being an unstable mental case should not be a reason not to allow someone to serve in the Legislature; that would wipe out, oh, about 47% of them!
WIN AN AR-15!
Buy a chance on an AR-15 and help defend your gun rights at the same time! Only 1,000 tickets are being sold. $10.00 gets a chance to win a custom-built AR-15 and two high-capacity 30-round magazines. All proceeds go to supporting the Nevada Firearms Coalition's lobbying efforts in Carson City this session. Contact Randy Mackie at randy@nvfac.org for tickets while they last.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“Nevada Senator Michael Roberson is leading a handful of fellow Republicans in a push to impose a new tax on mining. Another politician signs a ‘no new taxes’ pledge to get elected, then violates it when it becomes inconvenient. Nevada conservatives who have been sitting out Republican politics the last few years must feel vindicated. They shouldn't.
“In Douglas County, conservatives came back to the Republican Party in the last primary election to replace a RINO assemblyman (Kelly Kite) with a ‘no new taxes’ absolutist (Jim Wheeler). The campaign ran on a shoestring and featured lots of shoe leather, phone calls, and smart messaging.
“The way to replace Roberson and his arrogant raiders with true conservatives is to beat them in the Republican primary election. Now is the time for inactive Republicans, conservative third partiers and non-partisans to get off the sidelines and help effect change that comes only through governance.”
– Lynn Muzzy of Minden, Nevada, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 3/10/13
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