DRIVE-BY MUTHINGS
Congratulations to another Nevada winner!
No, not a political candidate. Congratulations to Nevada’s own Elizabeth Purtee of Reno for her Top 10
finish in the Senior America Pageant held last week in Atlantic City.
And for the record, she and her husband Jeffrey were very
generous donors to conservative, Tax Pledge-signers this election cycle when so
many other “doubting Thomas’s” snapped their wallets shut. Good things happen to good people!
The 2016 election cycle is already in full swing. The conservative Club for Growth PAC today
endorsed six conservative U.S. Senators for re-election: Ron Johnson (WI), Mike Lee
(UT), Rand Paul (KY), Marco Rubio (FL), Tim Scott (SC) and Pat
Toomey (PA).
And our friend Grover
Norquist at Americans for Tax Reform weighed in on Twitter today: “Republicans
likely to maintain Senate control in 2016. Watch Nevada. Colorado.” Let the games begin!
Just a few short weeks ago, a royal stink arose when the
members of Hispanics in Politics voted to endorse Republican Rep. Joe Heck in the CD-3 race, but HIP prez
Fernando Romero unilaterally over-ruled
the election and threw his organization’s support behind Democrat challenger Erin Bilbray-without-the Kohn.
At the time, Nevada’s #2 liberal blogger, Jon Ralston, scribbled on his blog to
fellow media types: “This group should be
ignored forevermore."
Well, guess who HIP’s scheduled speaker is tomorrow? Yep, the Hypocrite King himself…Jon Ralston!
Hilariously, Ralston is referring to this year’s national “red
wave” in Nevada as the “Sandoval Sweep” - as if Sandoval so much as broke a
sweat helping Republican candidates get elected other than Lieutenant
Gov.-elect Mark Hutchison. At best he gave many of them a photo op and a
template endorsement statement.
One of the national stories the liberal media is peddling
these days is how the Chamber of Commerce-types defeated the tea party movement
in this year’s election. Fortunately,
Nevada was the exception.
Not only did a number of tea party conservatives win their
primaries over Chamber-picked candidates, they went on to win their general
election races and oust moderate Minority Leader Pat Hickey, the Chamber’s pick for Assembly Speaker.
The tea party will be well represented in Carson City next
year!
And buckle up for inevitable clashes.
Pete Ernaut of
R&R Advertising - the political brains and campaign ATM machine behind Gov.
Brian Sandoval - has already gone on
record saying that tax hikes will be on the table next session despite
conservative Republicans campaigning not only on no new taxes, but no further
extensions of the sunsets.
And then there’s this…
Conservatives who backed Assemblyman Ira Hansen in the leadership fight last Friday who were given
committee chairmanships are Assemblywoman Michele
Fiore (Non-Taxation Committee), Assemblyman Jim Wheeler (Transportation Committee), Assemblyman John Ellison (Natural Resources
Committee) and Assemblyman John Hambrick
(Government Affairs Committee).
But the chairs of the other six committees are moderates who
backed Hickey: Assemblyman Paul Anderson
(Ways & Means), Assemblyman Wes Duncan (Judiciary), Assemblywoman Melissa Woodbury (Education),
Assemblyman James Oscarson (Health
& Human Services), Assemblyman Lynn
Stewart (Legislative Operations), and Assemblyman Randy Kirner (Commerce & Labor).
It will not be pretty if Republican chairmen throttle
conservative bills in committee the same way the Democrats used to.
By the way, two unsettled elections remain: First, Kirner
only defeated his conservative opponent, Lisa
Krasner, by 11 votes (no Democrat filed, setting up an R vs. R general
election). She’s mulling a challenge to
the absentee ballots. And Fiore is
reportedly asking for a re-vote this weekend on the GOP caucus majority leader
position won by Anderson last Friday night.
Democrats did a little post-election house cleaning this
week, too. Senate Democrats ousted Sen. Mo Denis as their caucus leader and
elected Sen. Aaron Ford
instead. That could bode well for
education reform.
Ford sponsored a “parent trigger” bill in the last session –
which would give parents whose kids are trapped in crappy public schools the
right to vote to convert the school into a charter school. The bill passed the Senate but was stupidly
killed in the Assembly by moderate Republicans led by Assemblyman Randy Kirner of Reno.
The new conservative majority in the Assembly this year won’t
let Kirner & Company get away with such anti-parent foolishness again.
The Las Vegas
Review-Journal is reporting that Uber has persuaded other cities and states
to create “a separate ride-sharing category enabling the company to operate
under different rules from taxis and limousines.” Nevada’s taxi cartel is pitching a fit over such
a suggestion, claiming “that would give Uber an unfair advantage.”
Oh, cry me a river. The
cartel has not only disadvantaged potential competitors over the past few
decades, but has used its super-strength political juice to keep potential
competitors out of Nevada completely!
Hey, here’s an idea: Instead of trying to regulate Uber like
the taxi industry, why not DE-regulate the taxi industry instead? You know, it’s crazy enough that it just
might work!
Advocates for legalizing marijuana for recreational use
submitted more than DOUBLE the number of signatures needed – over 200,000! – to
qualify the measure for the ballot in 2016 if the Nevada Legislature doesn’t approve
it in next year’s session. Which it
should do.
Legal marijuana use is spreading all across the nation, just
like gay marriage. It’s inevitable. People simply shouldn’t be thrown in jail for
smoking a plant that God created. I
mean, come on.
But more importantly, it’s estimated that legalizing and
taxing recreational use of marijuana could generate a windfall of tax revenue
to the tune of some $100 million A YEAR…which would go into education…which I
have no problem with…providing parents get, in exchange, school vouchers they
can use to send their kids to private schools.
Hmm. I sense the
basis of a win-win compromise between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats
in the Legislature here if everyone remembers it’s about what’s best for the
kids, not what’s best for the public schools.
During the primary season, I filed an ethics complaint
against Sen. Mark Hutchison for failing
to disclose, as required by law, the identity of a government employee he
represented while serving as a member of the Legislature. That’s a no-no.
Low and behold, now that the election is over and Mr. Hutchison is the lieutenant
governor-elect, the Ethics Committee just sent me notice that a “stipulated
agreement” has been proposed but will remain secret unless/until Sen. Hutchison
agrees with the terms. That negotiated
agreement will be considered next week at the Committee’s regularly-scheduled
meeting.
I’m guessing we’ll hear a promise from Hutch not to be a bad
boy in the future, combined with a slap on the wrist more akin to a love tap from
the Ethics cops.
NEVADA NEWS & VIEWS
REMINDER: VOTE TODAY IN $100,000 TEACHER CHALLENGE
Remember, you can (and should, please) vote every day for
Brenda Moynihan in her
effort to secure a $100,000 grant for C.T. Sewell Elementary School in
Henderson.
CLICK HERE to vote. And remember, you can vote every day until
the deadline on November 30th.
You know, just like in Chicago elections!
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“If you had a (health care reform) law which said that
healthy people are going to pay in - if you made explicit that healthy people pay
in and sick people get money - it would not have passed. Lack of transparency is a huge
advantage. And basically – call it the
stupidity of the American voter, or whatever – but basically that was really,
really critical for (ObamaCare) to pass.”
- MIT Prof. Jonathan Gruber, architect of ObamaCare, in a 2013 panel
discussion on video that was just unearthed the The Daily Caller
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Wednesday, November 12, 2014
SILVER STATE CONFIDENTIAL 11/12/2014
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