Friday, June 6, 2014

SILVER STATE CONFIDENTIAL 06/06/2014

COURAGE UNDER FIRE

In a tough re-election campaign against a “flexible” opponent who refuses to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, conservative Assemblyman Jim Wheeler of Douglas County is unable to be with us tonight at our monthly First Friday Happy Hour event in which we will be honoring 2014’s “Conservatives of the Year.”

Wheeler was selected to receive this year’s Courage Under Fire Award.  As he won’t be with us in person, he asked that I share the following prepared statement…


I just want to thank Citizens Outreach for the Courage Under Fire Award.

I don't know how much courage it takes to do what is right; to do what you promised you would do. But I guess in this day of candidates lying about there records in their campaigns, calling themselves conservatives, and then voting in direct opposition to their promises, we may consider standing your ground courage.

However, real courage took place 70 years ago today on the beaches of France. Real courage still takes place today in far off lands where those that still serve risk there very lives everyday to ensure our freedoms.

Given their sacrifices, their courage, I believe the very least I can do is to uphold our values and to stand our political ground. So I accept this award in their name.

REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT: WINNING UGLY

A number of good, conservative candidates are going to come up short on Tuesday.  And there are two prime reasons…

1.)  Not because they weren’t good candidates, but because they ran bad campaigns.  Or worse, they paid “Karl Rove” wannabes, who don’t know sh*t from apple butter, to run a lousy campaign for them.  Talk about insult to injury.

Once again, especially in Nevada, there is more incompetence in the field of political consulting than in any field other than psychiatry.  Oh, how I would love to see one or more of these badly mismanaged candidates sue their self-professed professional “campaign manager” for malpractice! 

2.)  The moderate, establishment-backed candidates had a sh*tload more money and used it to great effect to (a) lie about their opponents, and (b) lie about themselves, their own positions and voting record. 

The most egregious, of course, being the campaigns of Mark Hutchison for lieutenant governor and Moderate Mike Roberson for Senate District 20.  But here’s another example…

As Ray Hagar of the Reno Gazette-Journal reports, in a 2010 debate between conservative Ty Cobb and moderate Ben Kieckhefer for the open Senate District 16 seat, “Cobb point(ed) his finger at Kieckhefer and ask(ed) point blank if he would vote for a series of ‘sunset’ taxes if elected.  Kieckhefer flatly said no.”

Kieckhefer went on to win that race.  Then voted for the $620 million worth of “sunset” taxes in 2011. And then again in 2013.  Then added support for an additional new $600 million mining tax as a cherry on top.  In other words, he lied.

Fast forward to this year’s GOP primary and Kieckhefer actually had the stones to tell Hagar that he’s “as conservative on tax issues as anybody.”  Um, not as conservative as the true conservatives in the Legislature who kept their word and voted AGAINST extending those “temporary” tax hikes!  In other words, Kieckhefer’s STILL lying.

This phenomenon/fraud, by the way, is not unique to Nevada.  Establishment Republicans have been doing the exact same thing all across the country this year, including in U.S. Senate races.  Click here for examples outside of Nevada.

Bottom line: The establishment GOP candidates who win on Tuesday will have bought their victories on a bed of lies.  God help them if they ever have to run on a platform congruent with how they vote.  But they won’t, because they’re too dishonest.  Hard to see how a Democrat is any worse.

In any event, conservatives moved the ball down the field considerably this GOP primary season, but to really change the direction of state government back to the right we’re going to need to do some serious fixin’ of the above two problems.

DRIVE-BY MUTHINGS

>>>>> I was actually on the road traveling three weeks out of four in May and, as such, am way behind in writing about Nevada politics. So if some of this is old, please bear with me as I try to catch up…

>>>>> Even if Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl wasn’t a deserter (or worse), negotiating with the Taliban to swap him for FIVE high-level terrorists out of Guantanamo Bay was not only a bad deal, it was fundamentally stupid.  Alas, par for the course for this president.

>>>>> I learned a little more about ride-sharing service Uber yesterday from a driver in San Diego. WAY cool technology.  And a great way to break open the closed monopoly enjoyed by the taxi industry…especially in Las Vegas.  A true free-market alternative.  Count…me…in. 

>>>>> At long last, I finally had enough of liberal blogger Jon Ralston’s blather and bloviating on Twitter.

Yes, he’s well-connected and writes about a lot of relevant Nevada political stories.  But the constant self-congratulations and smarmy ridiculing of conservatives just became too much – as was the sheer number of tweets this guy posts, mainly to massage his own ego.

So on Wednesday I unplugged from the Ralston Matrix.  And I gotta tell ya…the food tastes better, the air smells cleaner and, by golly, I think the sun is actually shining brighter.  Admittedly, I may feel compelled to start “following” him again down the road, but for now…free at last, free at last, thank Al Gore almighty I’m free at last!

>>>>> On a related note, I received an invitation for the aforementioned Mr. Ralston to “connect” with him on LinkedIn.  I, um, respectfully declined. But the really funny part is how Jon describes himself on his LinkedIn profile: “Journalist at KSNV.”

“Journalist”?  HA!  If he’s a journalist, I’m a biochemical engineer.

BTW, if you’ve never witnessed a patented Ralston Hissy Fit, click here.  Man, this guy can sure dish it out, but what a whiny crybaby when it comes to taking it!

>>>>> Remember that one and only remaining bill that Sue Lowden disputed from her 2010 U.S. Senate race.  Yeah, a judge this week kicked the lawyer who brought the suit off the case…and Lowden already won the other disputed case in Ohio. 

In other words, Mark Hutchison’s scorched-earth campaign against Lowden in the GOP lieutenant governor race was like that episode of Seinfeld many years ago: It was all about nothing.

>>>>> Perhaps not since Heath Shuler was tapped by the Washington REDSKINS in 1994 has there been a worse first-round draft pick than Democrat congressional candidate Erin Bilbray-Kohn, who is challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Joe Heck.  How bad is she?

ICYMI, the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee recently announced a $43.5 million TV airtime buy for its top 2014 congressional prospects…and Bilbray-Kohn, a seasoned, professional Democrat campaign/candidate trainer, didn’t make the cut!

Her imported substitute spokesbabe, Erica Prosser, said – with a straight face, mind you – “We're confident we'll have the resources we need to be successful in November."  It’s pretty obvious that Prosser is the ONLY one with such confidence.  I think maybe she’s been dipping into Tick Segerblom’s stash.

>>>>> Cliven Bundy roundly criticized Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval for not doing more to resolve the dispute Bundy has with the BLM.  And it’s hard to argue the point.  Other than issuing one restrained press release in opposition to the BLM’s establishment of “free speech zones” at the protest site near the Bundy ranch, Sandoval was pretty much AWOL.

In other words, par for the course.

As a direct result, Bundy left the Republican Party and has joined the far more conservative and principled Independent American Party.  Hard to argue the decision.

>>>>> My liberal buddy Sen. Tick Segerblom tweeted a link to a Las Vegas Sun story about how a “Surge in Medicaid patients swamps state, puts UMC in a bind.”  That surge in Medicaid patients is thanks to Gov. Brian Sandoval and his running mate, Mark Hutchison.  Heckuva job, guys.  Heckuva job.

>>>>> Lawyer and judicial candidate Jacob Hafter called Judge Valerie Vega – who’s married to a Jewish guy - a racist and anti-Semite for not altering “a two-week civil trial schedule to accommodate a Jewish holiday” even though the trial date had reportedly been set for almost NINE MONTHS.

And this isn’t the first time Hafter has trotted out the ol’ anti-Semite routine against a judge.

Is anyone else tired of such race-baiting and Jew-baiting?  Well, apparently, yes…his own MOM!  She’s endorsing her son’s opponent, incumbent Judge Susan Johnson. I’m voting for her, too. 

>>>>> Some Clark County schools are bursting at the seams.  Victor Joecks of the Nevada Policy Research Institute has the only common sense, no-cost solution: Opportunity scholarships, or vouchers.  No wonder Victor was our Conservative Rising Star Award recipient in 2009!

GAWKER


FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“The fundamental difference between Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan is that Obama wants the American people to feel good about him while Reagan wanted the American people to feel good about themselves.” – Reagan biographer Craig Shirley

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