MUTH'S TRUTHS 12/29/2014

THE CASE AGAINST KEYSTONE

Republican Assembly Majority Leader Michele Fiore recently called out donor and mining tax-hike advocate Monte Miller – Treasurer of the Keystone Corporation - by name and suggested he was part of efforts to elect moderate candidates who are favorable to raising taxes - as long as they weren’t Miller’s taxes being raised!

And Fiore’s “king has no clothes” declaration against Miller is one of the smoke-screen excuses Speaker-of-the-Weak John Hambrick used just before Christmas to justify his unauthorized attempt to remove Fiore from her elected position as Majority Leader of the Republican Assembly Caucus (RAC), claiming in a “for internal communications only” memo that Fiore “put at risk long standing relationships with Keystone.”

Maybe yes; probably not. 

But from a conservative standpoint, Miller’s Keystone was absolutely an establishment GOP support organization that worked against conservatives in the 2014 election cycle.  Here, let’s take a look…

The first thing you’ll notice about Keystone is that their new Registered Agent as of January 2, 2014 is now Kolesar & Leatham, Chtd. 

And guess who works at Kolesar & Leatham?

Senate Majority Leader Moderate Mike Roberson.

And as you may recall, it was Miller and Roberson who teamed up to screw Nevada’s mining industry with a proposed $600 million tax hike last session.  You can read all about that by clicking here.

The president of Keystone is John Gibson.

Gibson was a member of Republicans for Harry Reid in 2010. 

The Vice President of Keystone is Bob List. 

List is the former Nevada Republican National Committeeman who is so in the tank for the GOP establishment that he was actually ousted from his leadership position by the conservative delegates to the Nevada Republican State Convention in 2012.

So as you can see, the current leadership of Keystone is anything but a bastion of movement conservatism.

But did Miller and Keystone actually work against conservatives by supporting moderate candidates in Republican primaries?  Well, let’s take a look. 

Here are some of the contributions Keystone made during primary election season this year, as per the Secretary of State’s website….

2/14/14:  $5,000 to One Nevada PAC, a political action committee set up by moderate, tax-hiking Republican State Sen. Greg Brower

2/14/14:  $5,000 to Becky Harris, the moderate GOP candidate running against a conservative candidate in the Senate District 9 primary

2/14/14:  $5,000 to Patricia Farley, the moderate GOP candidate running against two conservative candidates in the Senate District 8 primary

3/17/14:  $5,000 to Assembly Republican Caucus, which under the misdirection of then-Minority Leader Pat “The Appeaser” Hickey and then-Assistant Minority Leader Paul Anderson actively, though largely clandestinely, supported moderate assembly candidates against conservative assembly candidates in the GOP primaries

4/10/14:  $2,500 to P.K. O’Neill, who was running against a conservative candidate in the Assembly District 40 GOP primary

4/10/14:  $2,500 to Robin Reedy, the GOP establishment’s candidate who ran against conservative INCUMBENT Assemblyman Jim Wheeler in the Assembly District 39 GOP primary

4/10/14:  $2,500 to Ron Schmitt, the moderate establishment candidate recruited to run against conservative Jill Dickman in the Assembly District 31 GOP primary

4/10/14:  $2,500 to Laura Bledsoe, the moderate establishment candidate in the GOP primary in Assembly District 19

5/13/14:  $2,500 to Melissa Woodbury, an incumbent moderate Republican who didn’t even have a primary!

5/13/14:  $5,000 to Moderate Mike Roberson, the infamous Senate serial tax-hiker who was being challenged by conservative grassroots activist Carl Bunce

5/14/14:  $2,500 to Stephen Silberkraus, the moderate establishment carpet-bagging candidate who ran against conservative businesswoman Amy Groves in the Assembly District 29 GOP primary

But perhaps the strongest indictment against Keystone in this regard comes from an email Miller sent to every member of the RAC just hours before a caucus meeting in early December where Paul Anderson was running against John Hambrick for Speaker-designee.

In that email, Miller admitted that he directed, I believe, some $25,000 to a PAC 100% owned and controlled by Anderson rather than donate that money to the RAC - for which Anderson was, at the time, the Assistant Minority Leader!

Here’s an excerpt from Miller’s email to prove it…

“There have been rumors that funds (from the Keystone Corporation) given to the Growth and Opportunity PAC were misappropriated or misused.  I would like to address these rumors directly.  Funds were specifically invested in the Growth and Opportunity PAC because of the strategic plan to grow the caucus - developed to pick up and maintain seats over multiple cycles.  These funds were given directly to Assemblyman (Paul) Anderson’s Growth & Opportunity PAC instead of the Caucus for the purpose of executing a plan presented to us through multiple meetings. They were not intended for general Caucus use but to execute the Growth and Opportunity project.”

This bears repeating…

The Republican Assembly Caucus is the official organization responsible for “picking up and maintaining” Republican seats in the Assembly.  Not conservative seats.  Not moderate seats.  Republican seats.

But rather than direct Keystone’s money to the RAC – where it would be used to support both conservative and moderate GOP candidates - Miller diverted that money to Anderson’s personal PAC where only moderate candidates loyal to Anderson would be supported.

And he did this while Anderson was in the #2 leadership position with the RAC!

Here’s the bottom line…

Has Keystone been a generous financial supporter of Republicans in the past – including plenty of conservative Republicans?

Yes.

But did Keystone, under Miller’s direction as Fiore suggested, work hand-in-glove with moderate establishment Republicans who aided moderate GOP candidates over conservative GOP candidates in primaries in 2014?

Absolutely.

The prosecution rests.

HAMBRICK’S “BY AND LARGE” INTERVIEW

After sacking conservative Nevada Republican Assemblywoman Michele Fiore as Chairman of the Assembly Taxation Committee and announcing that he was unilaterally removing her from her elected leadership position as Assembly Majority Leader, Speaker-of-the-Weak John Hambrick appeared last a week ago on KDWN 720 AM Alan Stock’s radio program to ‘splain hisself.

It was during this interview that Hambrick declared that he would only honor his signed Taxpayer Protection Pledge – in which he promised the constituents of his district and the people of Nevada that he would oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes – “by and large.”

I wonder if that same caveat was included after-the-fact in his marriage vows?

This is also the interview where Hambrick stunned listeners with the revelation that he had been blackmailed into removing Fiore by one of two unidentified political consultants – Cory Christensen or Nathan Emens.

To listen to the full, dissembling, mumbling, bumbling, stumbling, fumbling interview, click HERE

And stay tuned for a major “Resign or Recall” announcement later this afternoon…

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“Republicans champion policies that built Texas.  Democrats favor policies that built Detroit. Every city & state is free to choose.” – Grover Norquist, president, Americans for Tax Reform