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WIRE-GATE UPDATE I
Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith wrote on Tuesday about the Wiregate investigation
into claims by Assemblyman Chris “Let’s
Make a Deal” Edwards that he was “extorted” by efforts to get him to change
his vote in leadership fights that took place inside the Republican Assembly
Caucus in December.
The main targets of Metro’s investigation appear to be GOP
activists Tony Dane and Rob Lauer, as well as a handful of
Edwards’ Assembly colleagues who the freshman may have secretly taped.
But as Smith points out, Edwards may inadvertently be
blowing the whistle on what some would call “legal extortion” – the practice of
juicing up elected officials with campaign donations.
For example, Smith pointed out that some $36,000 of Edwards’
total take of $79,000 – almost half - came AFTER he’d already won his
election but BEFORE Edwards was seated as a state legislator. Smith concluded that “only Chris Edwards
knows whether his new friends have won his heart, mind, and vote.”
I have to take issue with that. We all know that Edwards, like so many before
him, has now been effectively bought and paid for with campaign donations. It’s the Nevada way. It’s legal.
But it still stinks.
Minor correction: Smith reported that Edwards’
largesse was in response to his vote for Speaker-of-the-Weak John Hambrick in the Assembly
leadership fight. That is
incorrect. Edwards was firmly in the
camp of Hambrick’s opponent in that caucus election, Assemblyman Paul Anderson.
It was only after Hambrick won and double-crossed the 12
conservative members of the Assembly that Edwards hooked up with Hambrick and
allegedly shopped his vote relating to a special caucus meeting and election on
January 5th that ultimately never took place.
You can read Smith’s full column by clicking
here
WIRE-GATE UPDATE II
The attorney for Robb
Lauer – the GOP activist who had a search warrant for his home delivered by
a fully-armed SWAT unit a couple weeks ago over Assemblyman Chris “Let’s Make a Deal” Edwards “extortion”
accusation, fired back with an absolutely jaw-dropping motion today demanding
that the investigation of his client be quashed and that confiscated property,
including Lauer’s laptop and cell phone, be immediately returned.
David J. Otto’s
motion is truly explosive. You can read
the full document by clicking
here
There are, indeed, some truly wild suppositions and
allegations in the motion. However,
there are also legitimate points raised about the veracity of Edwards’ claims, as
well as questions raised as to why the search warrant affidavits have been
sealed and why SWAT was used to execute a warrant in a simple political
corruption case.
The militarization of local law enforcement continues to be
a growing issue. But I digress.
For those who don’t want to pore through the full 29-page
legal motion, here are some of the tweets I posted while reading it this morning…
To be clear, we honestly don’t know what Metro has in this
investigation.
But many of us, from Day One, suspected that Edwards filed
his accusation to preemptively protect himself against the threatened ethics complaint
Lauer was considering over his conversation with Edwards where Edwards’ allegedly
offered to sell his vote for money.
Most people only know the clean-cut Navy boy Edwards
portrays himself as in public. But those
of us who know him better in the world of politics know he’s a scheming,
backstabbing, lying sh**weasel – but I mean that in a good, Christian way.
And that fact won’t change no matter how the Metro investigation
turns out.
DRIVE-BY MUTHINGS
The Washington Post reported on Monday that dozens of
counties in Alabama are defying a federal judge’s ruling by refusing to issue
marriage licenses to gay couples.
Guess
where I’m flying to next Thursday?Yep. Montgomery,
Alabama. I guess I’m just drawn to
political controversy.
* * *
* *
A gunman in Atlanta who “just snapped” ended up killing 5
people, including three children over the weekend. According to police, the man was on his cell
phone with a friend right up to the time of the shooting. Police said in a news conference that the man
was, among other things, “upset about taxes.”
No further comment is necessary.
* * *
* *
I got in trouble with a couple of people on Twitter over the
weekend when I noted that more than 20 people in Egypt were killed in a riot at
a soccer game. All I did was question,
in light of the Egyptian tragedy, why Las Vegas taxpayers should subsidize building
a soccer stadium here. I mean, does that make me a bottom-feeding scumbag?
* * *
* *
In an op-ed published in Tuesday’s Las Vegas Sun, Sens. David Parks and Kelvin Atkinson write about a Republican plan that “would build
schools but gut the state’s law that requires contractors pay a living wage to the workers who build
those schools.”
Not true.
It would gut the state law that requires contractors to pay
a hyper-inflated UNION wage that costs Nevada taxpayers more to build a
school than it would if fair market wages were paid.
The change would mean taxpayers could
build more schools with the money saved.
Make it so.
THE FURTHER (MIS)ADVENTURES OF LI’L NATE
Most people don’t know this, but I built a time machine in
what was supposed to be my “man cave.”
And I took a trip into the future over the weekend and witnessed incompetent
political consultant Nathan Emens –
Speaker-of-the-Weak John Hambrick’s political
brain and useful idiot for Nevada Democrats – recording his last will and
testament on video.
Surprisingly, Assemblywomen Michele Fiore and Victoria
Seaman were on hand as witnesses. Here’s
the transcript…
“To John Hambrick,
I leave the Summerlin houses.”
“To Chris Edwards,
I leave all the apartment buildings in Green Valley.”
"To Mike Slanker,
I leave the offices in downtown Las Vegas."
"To Jon Ralston,
I leave all the condos at City Center."
Seaman was blown away, as she had no idea of Emens’
extensive holdings.
She leaned over to Fiore and whispered, “I guess he was a
much better political consultant than everybody realized to have accumulated so
much property.”
"Property?” Fiore responded. “That’s his a paper route!"
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“The government shouldn’t have to do more with less. It should do less with less.” – Chuck
Muth, president, Citizen Outreach
“The problem isn’t that we’re underfunding education. It’s
that we’re overfunding the education bureaucracy.” – Chuck Muth, president, Citizen
Outreach
“Raising taxes is a sign of incompetence in a politician.
He/she cannot manage. A willingness to raise taxes is telegraphing such
failure.” – Grover Norquist, president, Americans for Tax Reform
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