MUTH'S TRUTHS 11/01/2013

TONIGHT! - FIRST FRIDAY HAPPY HOUR Come meet Amanda Collins, an amazing young woman, tonight from 5:00 – 7:00 pm at the Blue Martini in Town Square on the south end of the Strip in Las Vegas.  If you’re unfamiliar with Amanda’s story, she was brutally assaulted and raped in a UNR parking garage in Reno because the Nevada Legislature disarmed her by prohibiting persons legally licensed to carry concealed weapons to do so on college campuses. The man who sexually assaulted Amanda let her live.  His next victim was not so lucky.  For the last two legislative sessions, Collins has fought to change the law so that others who find themselves in a similar situation in the future will at least have the means and right to fight back, potentially saving their own lives.  Democrats in the Assembly have killed her “campus carry” bills both times. To read more about this courageous woman, now married with two young children, click here And if you’d like to meet Amanda in person and thank her for her fight against victim disarmament, join us tonight at the Blue Martini! MUTH’S TRUTHS Neither Mass Deportations, Nor Mass Citizenship When it comes to fixing our nation’s illegal immigration problem, we face two serious problems: One is plugging the gaping holes on the enforcement side; the other is figuring out what to do with those who are already here in the U.S. illegally, many of whom have been our neighbors, friends and co-workers for many, many, years. As to the second problem, anyone wanting a seat at the table to resolve this issue has to acknowledge that this nation will never support the inhumanity of a mass deportation of an estimated 12 million people, many of whom were brought here as children with no say in the matter.  That said, in any immigration reform bill that Congress might consider, the first priority must be to “stop the bleeding” – meaning  tough enforcement at our porous borders.  The Gang of Eight Senate bill wasn’t strong enough on the enforcement side making it a non-starter in the House.  However, establishing some new form of legalization or documented status - not citizenship with voting rights - for many of those currently in the U.S. illegally but who are otherwise productive members of our communities, is doable and worth pursuing. As Reynaldo Robledo, co-owner of Roberto’s  Taco Shops, noted over the summer, “I don’t think we need to rush to make people here illegally citizens.  They want to be able to live here and work, but not everybody wants to be a citizen.” So let’s take full-blown citizenship off the table for now and just focus on establishing tough but fair criteria for allowing certain families and individuals to continue living and working here under some kind of legal status.  Then let’s see if the federal government is really and truly serious about sealing our borders and enforcing existing immigration laws.  Because at this point, Americans who have watched the federal government look the other way as the illegal immigration problem continued to get worse and worse have no reason to trust that “this time” will be any better. And part of any such stepped-up enforcement must include full implementation of a comprehensive e-verify system that will make it more difficult to hire individuals who enter the country illegally without imposing an undue compliance headache on employers. Once the federal government has demonstrated that the enforcement side is real and not just lip service, sometime down the road we can have a new discussion on the possibility of extending earned citizenship – including tough penalties and rigid requirements - that doesn’t set back those who are already waiting in line.  Immigration reform in the U.S. is a triage situation.  We need to do first things first - not everything all at once - if we want to do it right and save the patient. CAMPAIGN TRAINING WORKSHOPS Campaign/Candidate 101 Las Vegas, Nevada Tuesday, November 5, 2013 6:00 - 9:00 pm Click here for details READERS WRITE “This Jim Wheeler fellow used what some think is an outrageous analogy to make a point: He represents the people who elected him. In times past, it may have been true that the best exclamation point was a well placed hell or damn but in those days a true gentleman or lady would never use such a term in public. We have moved beyond that to where there are no longer any caveats on one’s choice of words. "And just who are those that would attack Jim Wheeler? The Democrats? Of course; otherwise they would be remiss in their duties to grab at any straw by which they might flog their opposition. But the loudest voices are coming from the other side of the aisle; from Mr. Wheeler’s own party. “To me and many others the true adherent of the GOP today fall into two groups; those who bask in the glow of the ‘Good Ol’ Boys’ Country Club of Crony Capitalists’ and those who desperately want to be allowed into that rarefied atmosphere. And then there are people like Ted Cruz and Jim Wheeler who never lose sight of the idea that they were elected to represent those who elected them and choose to do just that.” - Darwin Rockantansky of Las Vegas CORRECTION Assemblyman Paul Anderson is a tax-hiking moderate Republican, as I reported yesterday, but he is NOT a government employee.  It’s now-Sen. Scott Hammond, who Anderson replaced, who’s the government employee.  We regret the error…but not as much as we regret helping Sen. Moderate Mike Roberson get elected. Did someone forward you this copy of Muth's Truths? Get your own FREE subscription...