SILVER STATE CONFIDENTIAL 10/21/2014

WHAT’S UP IN DISTRICT COURT 8 RACE? I’m having a really tough time getting a handle on this District Court Department 8 race between the incumbent Doug Smith and his challenger, Christine Guerci-Nyhus.  I have two good conservative Republican lawyers who I often rely on for recommendations in such races.  One tells me Smith is “one of our best judges.”  The other says Smith is “the worst of the worst.” Then you have the liberal Las Vegas Sun endorsing Guerci-Nyhus, but you also have the usually conservative Las Vegas Review-Journal editorializing that Smith is one of five incumbents “who have no business running for office.” On the other hand, Smith has been endorsed by both Clark County Republican Party Chairman Dave McKeon and Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald – who almost never agree on anything - as well as the conservative Citizens for Responsible Government. I am truly perplexed on who to support in this race.  If any of you have any additional helpful information, please shoot it my way. THE LIBERAL OR THE LIAR? The incumbent in State Senate District 20, Michael Roberson, ran in 2010 as a fire-breathing conservative.  In fact, he signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge on Tax Day at a tea party rally! He then sold out conservatives in the 2013 legislative session by breaking his Pledge and supporting the extension of the “sunsets,” taxing the Internet, and proposing a massive $600 million-plus tax on our state’s mining industry. Worse, Roberson went on to actively discourage, and outright oppose, conservative Republican candidates in primaries this year, as well as forbidding any of his hand-picked recruits from signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Now I know a lot of you believe in your soul of souls that any Republican is better than any Democrat.  But in the immortal words of John Wayne to Bruce Dern in The Cowboys, “I can’t stand a liar.” In the RJ’s Voter Guide on Sunday, Roberson started off by saying, “Excessive taxation is bad for our economy.”  Yet he voted to extend the sunsets, tax the Internet, and continues to beat the drums for a mining tax hike.  Robo-Taxer went on to state that “As Senate Minority Leader, I have worked…to hold the line on tax increases.”  But that’s patently untrue, as he voted to extend the sunsets, tax the Internet, and proposed that massive tax hike on mining. Roberson then bragged that he “sponsored legislation to cut Nevada’s car registration fees,” which he described as “sky-high” on “working people.”  But the truth is he voted to extend the “sunsets,” which includes a hike in those “sky-high” vehicle registration fees. Roberson went on to claim that he “led the fight to pass legislation that cut payroll taxes for all Nevada businesses and eliminated the payroll tax for 75 percent of Nevada businesses.”  But that’s not true either.  Those changes were made within the governor’s budget.  Roberson had nothing to do with it. In other words, the guy is, and there’s just no polite way to put it in this case, a serial liar.  And that includes the lies he told about his conservative GOP primary opponent back in the spring. So if the Democrats had run a moderate candidate against him, I’d have been comfortable endorsing an honest “Blue Dog” Democrat over a lying sack of…er, suds any day of the week.  But they didn’t.  Instead they put up a woman, Teresa Lowry, who says “it’s time corporations in Nevada, who receive billions of dollars in earnings, begin to pay their share so our kids and families get the funding they deserve.” Pure, unadulterated liberal pap. So while there’s no way I can support the dishonesty represented by Roberson, there’s also no way I can support yet another ill-informed Democrat Bolshevik with no understanding of, let alone appreciation for,  the revenue-producing, job-creating contributions businesses and entrepreneurs make in Nevada. So my recommendation to conservatives in SD-20: Vote for "None of the Above" by refusing to vote for either Roberson or Lowry.  This is still Roberson’s race to lose, but why participate in encouraging even more dishonesty in politics?  Plus, you’ll sleep better at night! CHUCK’S 2014 ELECTION PICKS For the complete, up-to-date list of candidates I’m supporting this year, Click here DRIVE-BY MUTHINGS The Blaze: “Try not to cry after you see this kid with Down syndrome return a kickoff.”  Awesome!  Click here In Nevada, licensing confusion among elected officials at various levels of government reigns supreme for Medical Marijuana Establishment (MME) applicants.  Click here ARE THEY SMARTER THAN 9TH GRADERS? Reno area high school students and local business leaders will face off in a math competition on Thursday Oct. 23 at 6:00 at McQueen high school.  The event is a fund raiser for Northern Nevada Math Club.  The brave adults are: Channel 2 News Meteorologist Mike Alger, Univ. of Nevada Economics Professor Mark Pingle, former Reno mayor candidate and entrepreneur Robert Avery, land use planner John Krmpotic, ACE Charter school math teacher Bret Scoggin, and Professional Engineer and Senior Consultant at Global Risk Consultant Amanda Norris.  Visit  www.NNVMath.org for details.  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! 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